Okay, I'm finally doing this tomorrow morning. I'm due an oil change, so I'm thinking swap the sticks, pull the GPs, put the valve covers back on, and crank the motor to clear the cylinders. Then soak up any junk still in there, put the GPs back in, and change the oil.

I have a micro-cleaning kit for my Shop-Vac, and I have some tubing that I should be able to connect to it to suck out the cylinders. But since I'm due for an oil change anyway, I was thinking I could just clear the cylinders using the brute-force method. Will that work well enough? I'd just as soon not suck oil & fuel into my Shop-Vac if I don't have to.

What do y'all think?

 

You could build a quick version of the Super Duty Sucker jar and use your truck's vacuum pump after disabling the fuel pump. Add a 1/4'' piece of copper tubing to the hose to get down into the cylinders. It works great when doing mine and Rick's. My truck didn't hardly smoke at all after the install.

 

You don't need the shop vac, but if you want to use it, stick a mayonnaise jar in line to catch the oil. If you spin the motor by hand with a breaker bar when the injectors are removed, you will be able to shoot a stream of oil out the injector cup about 8' in each direction. Pulling the plugs in the oil rail will help minimize this. So will pulling the front two injectors first to let the oil just drain into the front cylinders.

After that, disabling the motor (unplug CPS, pull IDM fuse or relay, a combination of them, etc.) and cranking the starter with the glow plugs removed will clear all the liquid from the cylinder.

I know we don't really get much cold weather here, but have you at least ohmed your glow plugs to see if any of them are bad since you'll have them out anyway?

 

Good idea... Why go buy a vacuum pump when there's one sitting right there?? Gump!! You're a genius!!

EDIT: I'll go ahead and ohm them all out before I tear it down. I have the pin-outs right here.

 

Yep. Keep the old oil. Pull the injectors and GPs, install new injectors, put the VCs on, crank the engine and blow all the fluid out of the cylinders. Reinstall GPs while draining fuel contaminated oil. Put cheapest stuff (oil) you can find in there and fire it up. Run a bit and drain that contaminated oil out. Put on new filter and oil and get some.

 

...........live tuning.

If you're doing that Saturday, let me know what time. I'd like to ride in the back seat.

 

Here's the pic of my prototype so you get the idea. It has other uses as well.

I built a larger version, that we used, with a longer piece of copper tubing and bent it to get to the edge of the piston.
We pulled the last injector on each side and let it drain into that cyinder. I inserted the copper tubing and let it suck while it was draining. I, then, went back over all the cylinders, put the injectors in, turned over by hand with GPs out, then installed them. Checked the HPOP level and filled. Primed the fuel sytem and cranked over until it fired up.

 

By the time you go through all that sucking it out you are just as well served to crank the engine over and blow it out which you ought to do even if you suck it out just to be sure. Either way fuel will mix in the oil so just get it over with and change the oil. That is just my opinion.

 

Just less mess. That's all. When we turned it over, with the GPs out, there was hardly any oil on the rags we placed over the holes. When mine started, there was only a short puff of smoke and that was it. We didn't fog Rick's shop at all.

 

That was the main point I was trying to make Roland. Since you really have to do that anyway to be sure it is clear, might as well just do that and be done. That is all I was getting at.

 

Yeah, I think I'll just blow it out the GP holes and pour some fresh oil down through the heads once the pan drains. It should get it all out.

 

Exactly. The main thing is that there are no fluids in the cylinders to prevent hydrolocking and damage. It doesn't really matter how you go about doing it.

 

That is what I would do. I've done mine and I've watched Swamps do mine. Just do it quickly and be done with it. I'll never try to suck mine out again. Not worth it.

Now if you look down in the injector cups and see crud and decide you're not happy with that, then you get **** like I did and have to clean that out. Make sure you have a compressor if you fool around in there.

 

On the IH 530E's that I replaced injectors on at work, I just blew the oil out of the cylinders with a blow gun thru the injector holes. No GP's on them to do it with the injectors in. The fuel and oil rails are on the side, though, and not as much gets into the cylinders anyways.

 

Oh yeah, I've been spoiled with air tools several years now.