While playing this game, is it okay to actually whack the moles?

Yesterday my truck suddenly started having a loud and consistent "tic" under the hood. It seemed to run fine, but I was only a few blocks from home so I drove her gently back to the driveway. Haven't crawled under there, as it's snowing yet again, but if this is a loose injector (I've retightened these once before after doing orings last summer, no loctite on the bolts), is it okay to tap them? I have wooden mallets, rubber mallets, plastic mallets, etc. It just doesn't seem right to tap on an electrical component. Otherwise it's just using the injector bolts to press them into place.

Unlike Tugly, I have no desire to remove the injector and go through all that mess. Mostly because I don't have any extra orings. When I go in I will certainly check them all, but that either requires loosening them first, and then torquing, or just hitting them with the torque wrench, which implies over-torquing them slightly. I'm thinking of ordering all new bolts and orings, and re-doing this once again in the summer. Thoughts?

 

how low is the fuel in the tank?
if mine goes to less than 1/4 i can hear it tip or tap noise.

 

The tank is full, or dang close anyway. This noise is much more than air in fuel, it almost sounds destructive - I'm actually hoping it's whack-a-mole, if not then I'm really worried...

 

Yes... a loose injector is a scary sound until you are familiar with the nuance. I automatically get indigestion when I hear that sound now, and I lose my appetite. I call it the Whack-A-Mole diet. If it continues unchecked, you get bucking at light acceleration. Staying with the "ignore it until it goes away" approach brings an ever-louder destructive sound, demon-oozing-up-from-hell smoke at startup, fuel pressure surge, loss of oil, and the risk of cup damage. Go ahead... ask me how I know this one.

I have a dead-blow and I gently thumped them down until I could get the bracket under the top bolt. Sharp raps may knock the copper washer off the nozzle before the injector is seated. Once that top bolt is over the bracket, I've seen tools that pry the bracket down to full seat. I don't have one of those, and the demonstration was on a motor on a stand, not in the well.

Really long 3/8" socket drive extension... that's my tool. I apply one end of the extension to the bottom end of the bracket, and I use my dead blow on the top of the extension to seat the injector the rest of the way.

Before I go grabbing O-rings and mallets, I set the torque wrench to 50 in/lb and check the torque. If the bolt has 50 in/lb, I just do what I do to solve the problem. Sometimes I pull the bolt, apply thread locker and try to perfect my lock-down process - sometime I just torque it down.

If it's below 50 in/lb, the injector needs to come out and be re-ringed (according to the book, and according to my misadventures). This is the time to make sure the top bolt is still torqued. I had one injector that beat me bad, but it never dipped below 50 in/lb... so I retorqued it 10 times. I finally yanked the inspiration for sleepless nights, countless lost meals, interrupted vacations, and a whole new sailor vocabulary. The top bolt was losing torque, and the injector bracket is a see-saw... plus the top square O-ring was rolled. Of course it was number seven, on the dreaded passenger side. Why couldn't it have been #1 through #4?

Contrary to popular belief, it's not always as simple as "install bolt - turn right".

 

Thanks Rich. Mostly I was just wondering if tapping was necessary to fully seat them. When I replaced the orings last summer, and when I replaced my '97 injectors a few years back, I didn't need to whack any of them.

To get the injectors in place, I was either able to push them in, or I used a long bolt and a large washer (in the lower hole), and used my tie rod separator as a pry bar. I never had troubles with the '97. It doesn't appear that anything design-wise has changed since then, but...

As far as torquing the bolts, the top bolt went in first, as it tightens against the head itself, and then tighten the lower bolt, drawing the injector in place. How do you torque the top bolt? The injector solenoid gets in the way of even the tiniest socket. I don't have crows feet, do you use one of those? Or do you remove the solenoid? I hate taking things apart if I don't need to.

 

I didn't torque the top bolt - that's what kicked my ***. When I finally chased the top bolt, I ordered a $6 O-ring set from Clay, removed the injector, and flat replaced both bolts. I was pretty fed up by the time I pulled #7 the last time.

 

But did you torque it the second time? I have no way to measure the torque, I just go to snug, and then "a good effort" on that 3" wrench, maybe a quarter turn total.

Is it okay to remove the solenoid? I took them off my cores on the '97 just to see 'em, then mailed them out. Nothing complicated, but... or will I then be chasing loose solenoid screws? Those I think will fit down through the galley drain holes into the pan...

 

Way back...I had a set of injectors reman'd by Swamp's. They ran fine, but developed a miss. I pulled the valve cover and noticed one injector wasn't flowing oil. Removed the solenoid to find the screw on the poppet had come loose. I didn't have that funky socket to tighten it, so I replaced it with a 3mm button head socket head cap screw. Worked until I sold it to a friend. Then it developed a miss again, she took it to a mechanic.....bad injector. I tried to convince him to just check the screw...nope, he didn't want to play that game...new injector.

 

That's what I did the first 5 times... along with a combination of borrowed ft/lb torque wrenches. Feel free to go through "Stinky's Adventures" in your household - I hope your sanity and marriage is up for it. OR... do what I ultimately had to do and beg, borrow, buy, or steal the in/lb torque wrench it takes to nail this in one strike.

 

I've always thought that it's a bad idea to hit the solenoid to seat an injector. I have seen a you tube of a ford tech changing injectors and he put a small pry bar between the bracket and under the solenoid (not the solenoid itself but the lip at the top of injector) and pried it down into place. I used this technique myself and it works great.

As far as keeping the bolts tight and torqueing the top bolts I'm no help at all.