Your fuel injectors play a critical role in the combustion process in your diesel engine. They mix air with fuel and release it into the combustion chamber as a high-pressure spray.
In modern diesel engines, your camshaft or ECU controls the injectors for optimal injection timing. Fuel injectors are a complicated component in your diesel engine, but maintaining their health is vital to the overall performance of your engine. That’s why we’re going through how you can identify and replace a faulty fuel injector.
What Causes Injectors to Fail?
Different engines have different styles and types of injectors, but they have similar causes of failure. This include:
- Age and wear
- Cracking
- Clogging
- Air or water in the fuel system
- Busted seals and leaking
- Secondary damage from internal engine failure
- Internal injector components failing
It’s important to properly diagnose the cause of your injector failure. If they’re damaged from another failure in your engine but you just replace the injectors, the failure is likely to happen again. And you’ll be spending more on another set of injectors.
Do You Need to Replace All Your Injectors?
Many people want to just replace one injector when it fails instead of replacing them all, but whether this is a good idea or not depends on a number of factors, including the type of failure, if your injectors are on the same replacement schedule, and what you’re willing to spend.
The Pros of Replacing All of Your Injectors At Once
It might be easier to replace all of your injectors at the same time, because if one fails, there’s a decent chance that the rest aren’t far behind. You might consider this especially if your injector fails from age or wear.
Replacing them all at once prevents you from having to get into your engine each time one fails, as well as stopping the headaches caused by multiple failures. You might even have multiple injectors fail at once, making more sense to just replace them all.
It can also be more cost-efficient to replace all the injectors at once, in the long run. It’s often cheaper to buy the injectors in bulk, and if you use a mechanic, you’ll only be paying them once.
Should You Just Replace One Injector At a Time?
If you’re short on cash, though, and really need to get your engine running quickly, it might make more sense to replace just one injector.
It also can be effective if you’ve determined the failure to be an isolated incident that probably won’t affect your other injectors. In those situations, it’s probably fine to replace just the one you’re having problems with.
How To Identify the Failing Injector
If you’ve decided to replace just one injector, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve identified the one that’s giving you problems. You can do this in several different ways.
Ask Your Mechanic
If you aren’t confident in your ability to diagnose the issue or if you’re unfamiliar with fuel injectors, you can always have a mechanic take a look at the problem for you.
Listen to the Injectors
Listening to how your injectors sound can also help you find the guilty party. Don’t put your head too close to the engine while you do this, as it could cause injury.
Place a long screwdriver on the fuel injector. If it’s operating correctly, you should hear a clicking sound. Do this for each injector, keeping safety procedures in mind.
Use a Test Light
You can also connect a test light to check the injector wires for voltage. A properly working injector will result in a lit test light.
Since the engine will be running or turning over, keep all loose clothing away from it.
Use a Multimeter
A multimeter works in a similar way to the test light, checking if the injectors have power.
Check the Temperature
An infrared thermometer can help you check the temperature of the exhaust manifolds of each injector. The ones that aren’t working correctly will have a lower temperature.
Visual Inspection
Sometimes the failure will be obvious visually. You can check for broken seals or evidence of leaking. If you see fuel pooling in the cylinder, you’ve probably found the problem.
HHP is Here To Help!
If you’re looking for diesel engine fuel injectors, Highway & Heavy Parts can help! We have a large selection of injectors for different diesel engine applications.
If you’re not sure what’s going wrong in your engine, give us a call! Our ASE Certified Technicians can answer your questions and help you diagnose your problems.
We can help you find the right injectors for your engine.
From diagnosis through delivery, we’re Highway & Heavy Parts!
Related Articles:
THE IMPORTANCE OF REPLACING YOUR INJECTOR HOLD-DOWN BOLTS
WHEN SHOULD YOU REPLACE DIESEL ENGINE FUEL INJECTORS? SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS EXPLAINED
Related Videos:
