Injector cleaner

[pagoda113]

Morning

Does anyone ever add fuel injector cleaner in there system to clean the injectors ? Is it advisable or not ?

Thanks

[Dave H]

I have been cleaning my injectors this weekend.
6 from a 250 and 6 from a 280.
I bought a new pop tester from e bay (from India) delivered in 4 days for £60 all in.
I bought a new 600psi glycerine gauge off e bay for £7.
I also paid the $12 to watch Kent Bergsma’s injector  cleaning instruction video on the mercedessource site.( highly recommend because of the cutaway injectors he shows you.)
I would of bought his full cleaning kit and video  for $199 but by the time shipping and duty were added it would have been well over $300.
Armed with injector cleaner, ultrasonic bath, carb cleaner, thinners and a bunch of other stuff I put the 12 injectors through the deep cleaning process in the pop tester.

The results are as follows..

All 12 leaked, milked fuel and failed to atomise the fuel before cleaning.
Only 2 out of the 12 were any better and up to spec after 3 hours of intense cleaning .
I was about to give up because they still dripped from the tiny valve seat on the end.
With nothing to lose I went at cleaning the valve and seat.
I am not recomending this but as i say i had nothing to lose.
You can very carefully lift the spring loaded valve off its seat 2 mm with your fingernail and insert the pointed end of a tiny plastic cable tie.
Spin this round a dozen times to clean the seat and “ hey presto” all 12 cleaned up perfect.
It’s the chirp chirp noise they make when you know you’ve got them right plus the fine, wide ,even atomization at 250psi  your looking for with no leak down or drips.
My conclusion is that mixing injector cleaner with your fuel won’t touch this type of injector.
The problem is the tiny crud and varnish that accumulates under the tiny valve head and seat, even a good soak in a heated ultrasonic bath fails to get in there.

All 12 now work perfectly.

Trouble with using injector cleaner in your fuel is you can only guess if its working or not.
With these type of injectors you need to see them actually working in a pop tester or buy new new injectors to be 100%.
The reality will probably be your injectors leaking and spitting neat unatomised fuel into your cylinders and your car running rich like 90% of these engines are.
Hope this helps.

[Cees Klumper]

Hey Dave - sounds like you're onto something ...

[kampala]

Dave,

Fantastic write up!  very much appreciated.  I have seen many of the mercedes-source videos and have been thinking about cleaning the injectors.

Wanted to know about how you pulled the valve with your fingernail --- was this without any pressure from your pump?  just the injector without anything fitted to help push it out?

Now we have 102 things we can do with cable ties!

Thanks

[Dave H]

None of the above is my idea,
It's all down to Kent Bergsma.
That $12 shows you how to do it.
He uses brass to clean the little valve seat on the end of the injectors.to be fair I think I have been lucky with my injectors.
I expected at least half of them to be beyond repair.
The little valve is the size of a pin head.
At least by using the cheap pop testers you know your injectors are good or bad.
Every body goes after the injection pump first when it's the injectors that are the weak link.
If I had not cleaned them they would of just drizzled neat fuel into the cylinders.
Let's face it ,None of us would bother doing this if the injectors were cheap.
You would just change them out if they we're say $20 a pop to be on the safe side.

[mnahon]

Hi Dave,

Do you have a link for the tester from India? Also, what kind of cleaning fluid were you running through the injectors?

Thanks

[Dave H]

The tester is eBay item number:291344186642
You will need to order a 600psi gauge from another source.

The best cleaner i found was  the carb cleaner.
Also i worried about the fumes but in the video there is a way around this.
Very clever.


If i lived in the usa i would order the bergsma kit as it is complete and the video comes with it.
Postage and import duty to the UK from USA make it too expensive for me so i bought the indian tester and paid $12 to watch the video.

[john collins]

I bought Kent kit, and I can't wait to get my car back to try it out (a little welding is going on underneath....).  His video is great, and the kit appears just as advertised.

[pagoda113]

Update

Well got car out of garage today, Turned the car over and it fired up with no problems, I also put some injector cleaner in tank. Went for 100 mile drive and wow wow car is purring really nice now with my problem sorted. Was defaiintly worth doing changing the fuel filter in engine compartment.

Thanks All

[Cees Klumper]

So did you end up putting injector cleaner in the tank to get this result? Sounds good. I put some in my scooter because it was getting hard to start and it cleared that right up, so I'm a believer now.

[Mike K]

Over the last 9 months I've switched over to the Liqui Moly range of products, including: their 15W40 High Mileage mineral oil, LM 1013 Oil Additive, LM 1035 Hypoid-Gear Oil (GL 5) SAE 85 W-90,
LM 3652 Top Tec 1100 ATF and LM 5153 Pro-Line Fuel injection Cleaner.

I contacted their technical dept. in Germany with a number of queries, their advice and input on which products to use has certainly made a noticeable difference in the way the Old Girl is running.
 
Among the products recommended was their LM 5153 Pro-Line Fuel injection Cleaner http://www.liqui-moly.de/liquimoly/produktdb.nsf/id/en_5153.html?Opendocument&land=DE once again I've noticed a significant positive difference in performance. Like Cees, I'm a believer....

Best,

Mike

[merrill]

I use sea foam in the fuel tank at least once a year. The car runs much smoother during / after treatment.

[jameshoward]

I think there is very little evidence - supported by Which? magazine's view, who did a reasonably scientific test on these things a couple of years ago - that fuel additives make the slightest difference at all. Of course the internet is full of comments, none of which are particularly insightful.

Which? didn't test a product called BG44K, which whilst pricey, is in a slightly different bracket. (It's not sold in the shops in the UK or Germany that I've seen). It's worth reading up on.

Then there's the debate about putting 2 stroke (must be mineral) oil in with your fuel. The Land Rover Discovery community in the UK (for the newer discoveries) are pretty unanimous that it's a good thing to add 250ml of 2 stroke to a tank of diesel; the car starts better, runs better, etc and there's a suggestion that the turbos and EGR valves fail less on cars that follow this plan.

I use BG44K once in a while on the Pagoda. I can't be sure if it makes any difference. In fact, the only known known is that I have less money in my account having bought the stuff than I did before.

[stickandrudderman]

The problem is the tiny crud and varnish that accumulates under the tiny valve head and seat, even a good soak in a heated ultrasonic bath fails to get in there.

I confess that I have binned injectors that do not come good after a soak in the ultra-sonic bath but have not tried to open the injector valve as described.
I wonder what would happen if you put a small G clamp over the injector to hold the valve open and then run it through the ultra-sonic.

[Dave H]

Hi Colin
As you know the spring loaded valve is the tiny pintel ( pin head )in the middle of the valve end.
On searching Bosch web pages it mentions this pin head valve oscillates at high frequency which makes the chirping sound.
It's this oscillation which atomises the fuel, it doesn't just spray out under pressure .
If it doesn't chirp when it goes off it's not working.
I really think Kent Bergsma is onto something.
If all else fails he says and you can't get them to chirp he recommends you might improve them by carefully holding the the valve open with the pointed end of a tiny plastic cable tie and running it through the ultra sonic cleaner to clean the seat.
He says you can't save all injectors but it worked for me.
I wish injectors were 15 quid a time ,I would just change them out every other year and be done.

[JPMOSE]

BG 44k is my favorite fuel system cleaner!   It has a lot of fans!!    Check it out:


https://www.bgprod.com/catalog/gasoline-fuel-system/bg-44k-fuel-system-cleaner/