Mark has set a very high standard for himself if my exchange with him has inspired him to retire from rebuilding injectors, I will respect that.
Assuming that my injectors were the cause for smoking and nailing back in 2014, I got in touch with him and bought a set of injectors with one of his last sets of #1930 nozzles. Ol' Yeller had sat for 5+ years and so I thought that it was possible that it was time for rebuilt injectors and since I couldn't take the car out of service to send mine to him and wait to get them back, I bought a set of used injectors from him with these nozzles.
After my local independent installed the #1930 equipped injectors, the car smoked and nailed until it warmed up. I sent videos of this to Mark (the "smart" commentary?) and he immediately agreed to take them apart, clean them and test them. He hired his son to video the assembly and pop-test which he posted and sent to me on DVD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iksIlypNh8Q
As I recall, after installation, the smoking and nailing were less but never went away nor did the fuel mileage rise as I had expected. And I concluded that this was Part of Life With a Diesel these days. I had owned three MB diesels prior wit the last one sold back in 2000.
The car never seemed to run properly. Starting about a 1.5 years ago, it shuddered terribly when coming to a stop and Mike, my local, sort of shrugged his shoulders despite his (and his father's) many years as an independent that serviced mostly MBs in the New Bedford, MA area where I live.
This May I had business in Amherst and so I decided to drop by John Allen's for a chat. John and I went to high school together back when he was interested in Mini-Coopers and his dad, a mathematician, was my academic advisor at UMass. Having launched what became Robison Service in Springfield back in the mid-80s with John Robison, I was well aware that John Allen was still in the business of MB repair.
John's son Brian (worked with John for 20 years) made some quick adjustments and the idling smoothed right out but he felt that still, there was something wrong. Given the reputation of J.F. Allen company, it was no surprise that the next opening was in 6 weeks; this past Wed. July 5. Despite Mike, my local, having checked the compression the second time that Mark's injectors were installed (compression was good), Brian wanted to start from Square One. He has learned to believe nothing that someone says that someone else has been done to their car and I agreed that this was the best strategy.
And with that as background, here's my first email to Mark this AM.
Hi Mark,
Perhaps you might remember me. I bought a set of 5 special injectors from you for $300 back in 2014. After installation, the engine smoked on start-up and it nailed badly until it warmed up. I remember sending you some short video clips. My mechanic took them back out, reinstalled my old injectors (engine smoked on start-up and nailed badly); you kindly took yours back. You ultra-sound cleaned them again, pop-tested them, etc. and made a DVD of the pop-test and spray pattern. I took them back and kept them. The car ran a bit better but honestly didn't totally eliminate the problem nor did they improve my fuel mileage (typically 26.5 mpg highway) which is why I bought them in the first place. My local independent mechanic played with the rack damper, this and that but no improvement.
Earlier this week I had the car checked by an outstanding independent MB shop in western Mass. to get to the bottom of this poor running condition. He recommended that we start from square one to track it down and I agreed. Did a valve adjust, pulled the injectors, did a compression test, pop-tested your injectors. They pop-tested just fine but he did notice that the spray patter was narrower than stock and that they don't have the small center spray that strikes the "ball" in the pre-chamber. His recommendation was to replace them with Bosch re-manufactured injectors. He has a wide range of reliable suppliers and found a good deal on new Bosch injectors and pulled the trigger on those.
He also tightened the intake manifold nuts and retorqued the head to curve an oil leak, adjusted the altitude setting on the injection pump and then the turbo-boost setting since the air cleaner had to come off anyway to check the intake manifold nuts.
In a nut shell, the last thing to be done was to install the new injectors because of the need to wait for over-night shipping to arrive. Upon start up, the car immediately ran great; so well so that the mechanic forgot to run diesel purge through it. As such, I don't need your injectors. I also don't need the injectors that were in the car when I bought yours. We pop-tested those too and they all pop-tested well (looked like 1800 psi to me) but one didn't have a great spray pattern.
Would you be interested in buying these 10? I could return them to you along with the DVD you made.
The original Bosch injectors are shown in the first photos and your injectors are those with the red dust caps on them.
Thanks,
- Neil
Despite basically offering to take them back and sell both sets (is how I interpreted his reply) on consignment, Mark evidently changed his mind and after finding my old invoice PayPal'ed me $250 just as I was composing an email asking to confirm his mailing address with an offer to get them shipped back to him this AM.
If someone can confirm Mark's mail address in a PM to me, I would appreciate it. As I said in my note, the #1930 equipped injectors pop-tested just fine and I have no doubt that someone would be happy to have them but it is best that they be returned to Mark first.
And so, just to let folks know, I had no beef with Mark; in fact I think he was incredibly generous with his refund and offer to let me keep the #1930 equipped injectors (plus my original Bosch injectors) anyway. And I think that Mark makes it clear that he has no beef with me. He is making good on a promise he made to himself long ago and you can't argue with a man about that.