Cars and pain - Injectors and blood

Uncle Arthur · Postby **Uncle Arthur** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:07 am

Good news - the 1.8 injectors went in last night and it started and idled fine this morning.

Bad news - it was what I would call a 'relatively' simple task, challenged only by bolts that are difficult to reach, and old fuel hose that was impossible to remove without cutting. To add injury to insult, in cutting the new hose I put the razor blade across the first (fleshy) joint of the back of my index and middle fingers. One fraction of impatience and the result was soft squishy flesh, lots of blood, a trip to emergency and a tetanus shot.

Lots of cursing and swearing there too, and the annoyance at myself for not paying attention.

Don't anyone say I don't take the knocks for car projects.....

What else have people done to themselves in the pursuit of back yard mechanics?

StanTheMan · Postby **StanTheMan** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:32 am

nothing as bad as that. but certainly plenty of skimmed knuckes. Petrol in eyes. brakefluid in mouth & so on.......pretty harmless in comparison really

best one is when you really start cursing & yelling. Getting seriously angry at a bolt whch just will not come undone. :lol:

then all of a sudden....it comes loose. should have yelled at it much sooner.

Hope your finger gets better soon U.A.

jules · Postby **jules** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:13 am

I did a similar thing last weekend getting the gasket off the throttle body. My index finger slipped and scraped the joint across the sharp edge of the throttle body opening up the joint flesh in a most painful way.

Jules

lowmiata · Postby **lowmiata** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:23 am

Uncle Arthur wrote:What else have people done to themselves in the pursuit of back yard mechanics?

told you it was a prick of a job
gets easier every time wait till you put em in get everything back start the car then they leak!! then you'll know about it!

as for human damage all the usual stuff plus fuel oil even epoxy in the eyes al forms of metal in the eyes I now wear eye protection all the time when i work on cars as its usually when i least expect it that it will happen

used to getting hands caught inplaces that its hard to get them out of! you learn from your mistakes

Uncle Arthur · Postby **Uncle Arthur** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:27 am

lowmiata wrote:
Uncle Arthur wrote:What else have people done to themselves in the pursuit of back yard mechanics?

told you it was a prick of a job
gets easier every time wait till you put em in get everything back start the car then they leak!! then you'll know about it!

Started it this morning and hopefully no leaks - couldn't see/smell any....

fingers (right hand only) crossed.

sabretooth · Postby **sabretooth** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 12:55 pm

Did you change the injector O-rings? I forgot once, and started a fire halfway to Sydney...

Fatty · Postby **Fatty** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 12:58 pm

yea it's a prick of a job that. took me pretty much a whole day to get mine swapped in.

i didn;t use new o-rings tho. and 2 of them had slight cracks in them :shock:

they seem to work fine tho, but is this something i shoulkd be worried about?? there is definately no leaking into the engine bay tho, i'm pretty sure of that.

Juffa · Postby **Juffa** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:21 pm

lets see...too many self induced injuries when working on the car to list. But one of my favourite stuff up was when working on my first car (early model corolla hatch KE55 I think) I managed to put the clutch plate on back to front. Installed the gear box and then to take it all off again to fix it.

J

Babalouie · Postby **Babalouie** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:24 pm

Fatty wrote:yea it's a prick of a job that. took me pretty much a whole day to get mine swapped in.

i didn;t use new o-rings tho. and 2 of them had slight cracks in them

they seem to work fine tho, but is this something i shoulkd be worried about?? there is definately no leaking into the engine bay tho, i'm pretty sure of that.

I'd be concerned. Get under the bonnet after the engine's shut down, and wiggle the injectors left and right. If the o rings aren't good enough you'll hear and smell a slight mist of fuel spray out from the residual pressure in the rail. It doesn't have to be an actual drip, drip, if the o ring isn't optimal, it can be a very fine spray of fuel, which in a sense is even more flammable than a puddle of spilt fuel.

When you're getting new o-rings, make sure they are the fuel-safe green ones. Normal o rings aren't good enough for injectors, and I use a lick of thick gear oil to lube the new o rings (which will be fatter than the old ones) as they go in, to stop them pinching and coming out of their groove.

Fatty · Postby **Fatty** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:25 pm

hmmm. thanks mate. i'll check it out.

Garry · Postby **Garry** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:40 pm

Every time I touch a car there's varying levels of blood letting involved. I've managed to stab myself with a knife in the webbing on my hand between thumb and finger and tip used engine oil and touchup paint into my eye. Those 3 required trips to casualty, the other incidents were usually fixed with a few bandaids.

Uncle Arthur · Postby **Uncle Arthur** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:42 pm

sabretooth wrote:Did you change the injector O-rings? I forgot once, and started a fire halfway to Sydney...

Taken care of by getting a full injector service on the 1.8s c/o mazbiz off the Aus Rotary forum - included flow testing and new orings and spacers for $60 or $70 including postage.

mossy · Postby **mossy** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 3:00 pm

I got so sick of getting skinned knuckles I now wear my fox full finger MTB gloves, no more skinned knuckles!

sabretooth · Postby **sabretooth** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 5:11 pm

I'm having trouble understanding why people had so much difficulty with their injectors. Is it a B6 thing? I can swap mine in and out just by removing the 3 fuel rail bolts and moving it out of the way.

Boags · Postby **Boags** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 5:18 pm

sabretooth wrote:I'm having trouble understanding why people had so much difficulty with their injectors. Is it a B6 thing? I can swap mine in and out just by removing the 3 fuel rail bolts and moving it out of the way.

The B6 rail only has 2 bolts.

Moved it out of the way and new injectors in in about 30mins... UA's fuel hose was hard and stiff though, so the fuel rail didn't move. Oh, I lost the spacer for half the day actually... :roll:

It fell into the unknown...

Boags