Lex4TDI4Life
Top Post Dawg
After performing my first nozzle swap the the Ho5G GTG this past weekend, I have learned a few things the hard way and would like to share those lessons for the next newb who attempts this. It should be noted that my car has over 145K mi on it, plenty of miles for carbon and schmutz to get into undesired places.
As those who were there will attest, the swap was a serious PITA for me. I installed a used set of PP520s - the engine would not start. Assuming bad injectors, I got a minty fresh set of PP520s off of IndigoBlueWagon (yes, he had an extra set on him and was instrumental in me finally getting the swap complete). After installing the new ones, the freakin engine still would not start! After having almost everyone there taking a look and helping out, we finally got it started. Special thanks go out to DanEBoy, whose insight was very helpful.
Here are the lessons:
1. Clean the injecter holes thoroughly. I learned the hard way that the injector and washer are very sensitive to small amounts of carbon that build up down there, causing them to not seat properly. This may have been partially due to the miles on my engine. The original nozzles had been there for its whole life and the inectors were probably never removed before. I skipped this step and found compression leaks at 3 of the 4 injectors.
2. Just barely crack the fuel lines at the pump and, once removed from the injectors, keep the lines elevated. One of the reasons it took me so long to get my engine started was that there was signigicant amount of air in the fuel lines. I had to crank forever to get them purged properly. Even when it did start, I had to take it under a couple high-load runs to get all the air out. I think I allowed too much fuel to escape by opening the nuts at the pump too much and allowing the fuel lines to dip back down and leak.
3. Get a TDI Injector Slide Hammer Puller from Metalnerd . For injectors as old and frozen in place as mine, this was highly neccessary. Thanks to our hosts, Peter and Julie, for lending it to me.
4. Make sure your battery is in good shape and have access to a jumper car or charger. This may not be neccessary if you were good about keeping air out of your fuel system. With all the cranking I had to do, however, it saved my tukkus.
5. Do it at a GTG and have lots of generous and knowledgable clubbers help you out
Thats all I can think of. I know that all of these pointers exist scattered through other threads. I just wanted to share my experience to help the next newb to tackle this.
-Lex
As those who were there will attest, the swap was a serious PITA for me. I installed a used set of PP520s - the engine would not start. Assuming bad injectors, I got a minty fresh set of PP520s off of IndigoBlueWagon (yes, he had an extra set on him and was instrumental in me finally getting the swap complete). After installing the new ones, the freakin engine still would not start! After having almost everyone there taking a look and helping out, we finally got it started. Special thanks go out to DanEBoy, whose insight was very helpful.
Here are the lessons:
1. Clean the injecter holes thoroughly. I learned the hard way that the injector and washer are very sensitive to small amounts of carbon that build up down there, causing them to not seat properly. This may have been partially due to the miles on my engine. The original nozzles had been there for its whole life and the inectors were probably never removed before. I skipped this step and found compression leaks at 3 of the 4 injectors.
2. Just barely crack the fuel lines at the pump and, once removed from the injectors, keep the lines elevated. One of the reasons it took me so long to get my engine started was that there was signigicant amount of air in the fuel lines. I had to crank forever to get them purged properly. Even when it did start, I had to take it under a couple high-load runs to get all the air out. I think I allowed too much fuel to escape by opening the nuts at the pump too much and allowing the fuel lines to dip back down and leak.
3. Get a TDI Injector Slide Hammer Puller from Metalnerd . For injectors as old and frozen in place as mine, this was highly neccessary. Thanks to our hosts, Peter and Julie, for lending it to me.
4. Make sure your battery is in good shape and have access to a jumper car or charger. This may not be neccessary if you were good about keeping air out of your fuel system. With all the cranking I had to do, however, it saved my tukkus.
5. Do it at a GTG and have lots of generous and knowledgable clubbers help you out
Thats all I can think of. I know that all of these pointers exist scattered through other threads. I just wanted to share my experience to help the next newb to tackle this.
-Lex
Last edited: