hey everyone
I must say, this is one of the best forums out on the net for MB....even better that royfields (sorry about that but i have to admit). Anyway, I was thinking of changing out all 5 of my injectors, but first i wanted to know what are the symptoms of bad injectors. I get really poor acceleration when the 300D is hot..but i'm thinking that thats a vacumm problem. When i'm at a stop, the car kicks up a lot of black smoke when i floor it.

My mechanic tells me that the injector nozzles are bad and that they are leaking on top of the glow plugs...but i'm thinking that the timing chain is advanced since thats what causes lots of black smoke...hmmmm dont know who to believe. Well, this is where all ya coming...thanks for al your help and replies

Allan

hey man. i didnt notice much difference in noise before and after the changeout. there was a slight extra rattle before. the big difference came acceleration. i couldnt keep a steady speed before changing the injectors. i would hold the gas pedal steady and the engine would just race. and when driving, it would start out real slow but then explode with speed. but ive noticed, even with it all fixed up, the old diesel still takes off a bit sluggish. so yeah, basically all my problems before switching out the injectors were related to acceleration.

Greetings Nomad,

After reading your post it's hard to tell whether you advise the change and noticed a difference that was worth the $100 price or felt you really didn't get your monies worth. What benefits did you notice after the change besides the steady rpm at a certain pedal setting?

Charles

yeah, the injectors were a definate plus. it was a real pain driving it beforehand cause you couldnt hold a steady pace. it was speed up, slow down, speed up, slow down, all the time. once i got them switched out, though, i was able to actually maintain a speed for a change. it was almost like i was running on 3 or 4 cylinders until i hit a certain speed and then wham! all 5 would kick in.
as to other benefits, there werent any i really picked up on. i did notice it was slightly easier to start afterward.
i wasnt too sure how it was suppossed to run, either. this guy just gave me the car, he was tired of looking at it and didnt want to work on it. so being my first diesel, and that being a 1978 diesel, i wasnt sure what to expect. so i dont think i picked up on things that i would notice now.
but yes, the injectors were a welcome addition and were worth every penny i spent. sorry about the confusion.

If your injectors are nearing the end of their useful life, you'll get a LOT of extra knocking and pinging, especially when the engine is cold, and especially under heavy acceleration. Also, you might get some excessive smoke, but excessive smoke can be caused by many other issues as well.

You might be able to have your injectors rebuilt instead of buying brand new ones. Look in the yellow pages for fuel injection service. I had my four injectors done for about $140, if I recall correctly, by Clean Air Fuel Injection in Boca Raton, FL.

- Nathan
'83 240D, 255k miles, currently torn apart for rebuild
'00 VW New Beetle TDI, 25k miles

[Edited by ncarter on 07-09-2001 at 07:48 PM]