Fuel Injector Issues [SOLVED]

/* Edit: This is solved now. Thanks everyone . Changed the topic so I could add "SOLVED". Original was "Down to one cylinder, back up to three. Fuel injector is out". */

Hey,

Sorry for being so inactive and coming back as soon as I get a nasty issue. Maybe I can try to be more responsive here to other people's threads, although I'm really no car expert.

My Celica is an '86 GT-S manual coupe, very stock, 149k miles.

I've almost put 9k miles on the Celica on my ownership, mostly thanks to my awesome girlfriend ;-). I went on a camping trip with her (Heather, my girlfriend, although the Celica came along) and it poured. Some of the roads were a little on the off-road side, but it really wasn't too bad. I've driven my Celica through some really nasty rain and huge puddles before, but without any problems, ever.

We drove back to Heather's house with no obvious issues. Parked the car, then came back to it. Started it up just fine when I had to go. It was dark and raining moderately, about 1.5 minutes towards my house the car became totally gutless. I pulled it off to the side (I was really lucky with where this happened), and started to investigate. When starting the car, I had to have WOT just to keep it from dieing. I could barely get it to 2k RPM at all. I ended up taking Heather's dad's awesome Toyota truck (which is a manual) back home and back the next day.

I checked for these things:
Pedal to throttle body is fine, it truly opens WOT as far as I know.
Running without the air filter doesn't help.
Running 500ml of 70% alcohol through it might have helped a touch to burn off water, but didn't fix it.
Distributor didn't look wet, and looked impossible to get wet.
Spark plug cables seemed to be fine.

With some playing around, the car was a little more joyful. I managed to run it at 20mph in first gear. When I had to turn around in reverse, on a slight hill it couldn't do it. I had to go forward up a hill and use the momentum to get me through. It would rev up to maybe 5.5k RPM in neutral.

So, at this point:
It dies on just idle throttle.
It's torqueless.
No strange smoke.
The engine shakes violently around 1k RPM and lower, higher is not noticeable.
The oil isn't foaming, so it's probably not a blown head gasket.

We ended up calling a tow truck and having it bring the car to a nearby mechanic. They've looked at it and concluded this for $204.75 USD: -/ Makes me want to never send a car to a mechanic again)

It was running on one cylinder when they got it.
Some magic with cleaning corrosion on the batter's positive post made all cylinders come back except #2.
The sparking is fine.
Compression is average.
Fuel isn't coming out of #2.

They say it should be drivable on just 3 cylinders and that it may free up under heavy driving. When they said it would be $360-$375 total to clean out the injectors (or a ridiculous amount more to replace them), I opted to take the rest into my hand, as long as I can drive it to Heather's house on Friday. I don't know how the car feels, since I haven't seen it since I left it for the tow truck. I don't know how much power it really has, but it's definitely on 3 cylinders according to the mechanic.

Here's some more background:
Fuel injectors were replaced recently before I bought the car.
It wouldn't go above 4k RPM until I had the fuel filter replaced, which was non-OEM and required bending the fuel pipes out of place, so maybe something was loosened up and got in the system then.
It usually handles the rain perfectly.
Around 1k RPM with the clutch fully out, the car is a little jerky, even at slightly higher RPMs. It's not really jerky exactly, more like consistently feeling the motion of the pistons, lurching slightly faster every other second for a brief moment or something. I hope that makes sense. Is it possible that *maybe* it's always been running on 3 cylinders all this time? It seems a little too powerful for that though.
I've had occasional fuel starvation issues momentarily in the past, both when just starting the car and after driving it for a while.
I get 27-29 mpg, mostly highway driving.

I don't have much money to spend and want to get it working. I'm thinking that I should get it, drive it to Heather's place, run some Seafoam through the fuel tank, or anywhere else you suggest. I'm also wondering if it's possible for me to take off the fuel injectors and clean them myself. I think that maybe the old fuel filter got something inside the fuel lines from the fuel filter to the injectors, and something happened randomly and got them dislodged to a place where they could block off the fuel.

Everyone else (and me) thinks this is insignificant, but the bottom-most fuse on the connector positive terminal of the battery has the plastic off. It doesn't look bad though. *Could* that possibly be related?

So, what do you think I should do? Will it drive up a hill on 3 cylinders?

Thank you all so much.

--Teran

 

Re: Down to one cylinder, back up to three. Fuel injector is out

Hey,

Well, I got the Celica back. It's definitely on 3 cylinders, quite noticeably less power.

I ran some Seafoam through it. A whole can in a 1/2 tank of gas, some in the crank case, and some through the brake vacuum line. As they said, it smoked tremendously when it went in through the brake line, sat, and started again. I think it was maybe a little cleaner seeming after that, but it was still on 3 cylinders. What I noticed though, was that it smoked (not literally smoke, I think, just something like it) out in the engine bay area, mostly around the O2 sensor (which was recently replaced). I tightened the bolts on the O2 sensor, but there didn't seem to be much change. The smoke is gone after the Seafoam ran through for a while.

Is the smoke that came through the engine bay when I ran the Seafoam through a cause for concern, or is it normal?

What do you think my next step should be to try to get injector #2 freed? How can I take out the injectors? I don't even know where they are :-/.

Thanks,
Teran

 

Re: Down to one cylinder, back up to three. Fuel injector is out

It only smoked from the engine when the Seafoam was ran through, so I don't think so. The smoke is expected from the tailpipe, I'm just not sure if it should also be coming from the engine, too.

Here is an article on using Seafoam, in case it helps: http://dailydriventj.com/seafoam.shtml

Thanks,
Teran

 

Re: Down to one cylinder, back up to three. Fuel injector is out

Hey,

Just tried to take my girlfriend home in the Celica. After being parked for a couple days, it felt like it was on two cylinders, although I have no proof of that :-(. If it really did drop down to two, do you have any more suggestions?

I'd really appreciate some help with this. I had to drive my parent's Honda CR-V automatic instead, which was down right scary, and isn't a good long term solution ;-).

Thanks,
Teran

 

Re: Down to one cylinder, back up to three. Fuel injector is out

The mechanic tested compression and said it was fine. I don't know anything about compression testing, but here are the numbers: 170 165 170 160.

I was just messing with things and trying what I could. I checked the resistance on the fuel injectors, and I think #3 was the furthest one off around the 12 Ohm range, #2 was totally fine around 13.9 Ohms. It is definitely only #2 that is out from what I can tell. I pulled #2's spark plug and put it close to the distributor, and got a very good, consistent spark, just like #1.

I don't really know why it went from 1 cylinders to 3, that's what's getting me. It is looking more and more like it is that injector on #2, but I'm wondering if there is more of a deeper problem due to the other cylinders being out.

Oh, in case I do have to check the injectors, is it necessary to clear out the engine coolant, like the manual says? http://www.st165-all-trac.net/st162manu ... n/fi76.jpg

If I do have to clear out the coolant, does anyone have the specific page? It doesn't seem to be up on http://www.st165-all-trac.net/ .

I had an idea of possibly clearing out the #2 injector. It sounds dangerous to me, but I'm wondering what you guys think. What if I put a constant voltage on the injector? So it would be in effect, if it is working, squirting a continuous stream out into the cylinder, possibly flooding it. It might break any debris free a lot more easily with a continuous stream, rather than little momentary squirts. If the cylinder is flooded, is it dangerous? Might this work? Could it be worth it?

Let me know what you guys think I should do next. Thank you so much for the feedback.

Thanks,
Teran

 

Re: Down to one cylinder, back up to three. Fuel injector is out

It's getting dark, so I think I'm about done for today on the Celica. The car is really sputtering and hesitant around 1-2.3k~ RPM, in the higher ranges it feels fairly close to normal. I'd need to get a different hex tool if I do go for the fuel injectors. I just checked and the car is giving no error codes. Any suggestions, or should I take a look at #2's injector? Also, what about the flooding injector #2 idea in my previous post?

Thanks,
Teran

 

Re: Down to one cylinder, back up to three. Fuel injector is out

Hey,

Anyone have some thoughts on this? I've had some advice from my girlfriend's dad that I might give a try. Other opinions would be really appreciated though. Life is definitely more awkward without a car (more rather, a car I trust much on the road).

Thanks,
Teran

 

Re: Down to one cylinder, back up to three. Fuel injector is out

Ok, I put a 9v battery up to the injector directly and heard it click like it was trying to open. 9v possibly isn't enough, but this seems (from my understanding) to be a current controlled circuit, so I'm not sure how much resistance is normally in between the injector and the ECU (or probably not the ECU, but connected to it somehow). I hope I didn't damage the injector's electronics, but the resistance reading is still the same, so hopefully I didn't.

Tomorrow I think I'll try taking out the spark plug and putting some cleaner or gas straight into the cylinder, hoping it'll backfire. Any other suggestions or ideas though?

Thanks,
Teran

 

Re: Down to one cylinder, back up to three. Fuel injector is out

Ok, I got another idea. I thought that perhaps trying to run the #2 cylinder alone (even though the injector is clogged) might help free it in case the fuel pressure dropped from the other cylinders firing. A few more thoughts later, I concluded that the firing was probably sequential and only for an extremely severe fuel pressure problem (where the 3 other cylinders probably wouldn't work at all), would this probably be the case. I decided to give it a try anyways.

I tested, and #2 wouldn't run on it's own and it didn't push out whatever was clogging it. I did try running all of the other cylinders on their own though, and got some interesting results.

#1: Wouldn't start on its own.
#2: Of course wouldn't start since it's clogged.
#3: Started and ran well on its own, of course at *much* less power. I can at least get to 3k RPM on #3 alone, probably higher (I actually think 5k).
#4: After many tries it started, but it wouldn't go above 500 RPM. Much worse than #3, but at least it ran.

Perhaps there is a problem in the fuel rail? This seems like more than just an off injector to me, especially with the whole car being on 1 cylinder when the issue started, and then randomly kicking up to 3. I've also had the rare fuel starvation issue on occasion, but usually then it was just momentary and not severe.

Maybe this can also be compared to the compression test? 170 165 170 160 doesn't seem to correspond if it's 1-4, left to right. I don't think it's that related either way.

Maybe I should try jumping the Celica in-case it's an electrical issue, related to the EFI? I don't think this would be it though, just the mechanic got the rest of the cylinders up after cleaning the battery post; not sure if it's related.

Any ideas, questions, or suggestions?

Thanks,
Teran

 

Re: Down to one cylinder, back up to three. Fuel injector is out

Ok, I got a plug wrench and went to remove the spark plug. It was in extremely tight, even my dad couldn't do it with his bare hands (he needed some large pliers). I tried loosening the #1 cylinder's spark plug just to see what it would be like, and I could do it bare handed just fine (the mechanic swapped #1 and #2's spark plugs , if it helps). I didn't take a look at #1's spark plug, by the way.

The spark plug was extremely black and oily, as if it had been burning rich. The gap was also like 0.8mm, a far cry from the optimal and recommended 1.1mm. This is coming from the cylinder which for the past 26 miles or so has been having no fuel at all, so it's pretty surprising, at least to me. Anyways, I tried running it with no spark plug or anything blocking the cylinder (so the engine was open). It was like a lawn mower :-/. I then tried adding Seafoam straight into the cylinder, via the spark plug hole, and not clogging it. It smoked out a lot, but didn't seem to do much. I then added more Seafoam and closed it all up with the spark plug (after raising the gap to about 0.95mm, hopefully not damaging it in the process). It of course dripped the excess out the exhaust, but didn't backfire into the injector and dislodge the debris or anything. It did seem to run a little smoother, but that might be just me.

So, it looks like the next step is 4 new spark plugs. Before testing this, I tested bypassing the fuse missing a cover that always bothered me, and jumping the car in case of a voltage issue. Neither was successful, although it was cool seeing the starter act a little faster with the higher voltage from a running car.

I'd really appreciate some suggestions if you have any.

Thanks,
Teran

 

Re: Down to one cylinder, back up to three. Fuel injector is out

Thanks for the feedback. I cleaned off the sparkplugs, set them at 1.1mm, and made sure that they all worked. I didn't bother with the rotor and cap because the sparking was working fine (or should I do that anyways?).

After that and some more cleaning work in the engine, it was still the same. I'm going to get to the injectors today with my girlfriend. Wish me luck . Of course, suggestions are almost as good as luck at this point ;-).

Thanks,
Teran

 

Re: Down to one cylinder, back up to three. Fuel injector is out

I've run a *ton* of injector cleaner through it. I know it's the injector because all spark plugs fire properly (or at least, visibly and consistently), and if I take off #2's injector and/or spark plug it makes no difference in performance (which is currently quite low).

Also, taking off #2's spark plug doesn't make it run rich, even triggering the injector manually doesn't do it.

Believe it or not, I managed to get the #2 injector out without taking off the TB or all that much. I may have damaged a hose in the process, but I got it out completely not by the book . Sure enough, it was visibly very clogged at the inlet. We've been cleaning it off and can blow air and water through it now (Heather had the great idea of pushing air and water into it with her mouth, it works quite well).

When I get some daylight tomorrow I'll take out the rest of the injectors to check them and try to clean off the fuel rail as much as I can without taking it out. What I'm really wondering is why it got clogged in the first place. Was it the non-OEM fuel filter that didn't fit right installed under the previous owners? Is gunk getting into the lines somehow? I'm really curious about that; I don't want to clean it and have it gunk up again. Any ideas as to what might have caused it?

Thanks,
Teran

 

Re: Down to one cylinder, back up to three. Fuel injector is out

Oh yeah! I got all injectors out along with the fuel rail, without taking the sway bar out, throttle body, or that much at all =D. It was "hackish", but worked. And at most I think I may have broken the fuel pulsation regulator thing, and/or a hose, but I think it's actually all good and untainted.

Cars are fun . The fuel rail is one impressive piece of metal. Mine looks to be in perfect condition, but I"m cleaning it out as much as I can.

If I can get it all back together, I think the Celica is going to breathe again =D.

Cheers,
Teran