[TimC63]

O-Boy... O-Rings! **Pics Added**

Well, using a pressure rig from Kim Lux' instructions, I pressurized the passenger side rail and found it would pump right up to 3,000 psi but bleed off to nothing in about 15 minutes.
I was little bummed out since I was sure that o-rings were the smoking gun from all the discussion of symptoms.
Quit for the night and cleaned up as it was about time to say goodnight and get the kids off to bed.... then it occurred to me that I ought to test the driver's side head before I called it quits.
ZERO pressure could be held in the driver's side rail with my test rig. The rig uses a grease gun as a pumping source for the 15w/40 oil and moves a pretty small volume each stroke. But for comparison, I think it only took about 6-8 pumps to hit 3,000 psi on the other side, pumping as fast as I could I was only able to get the needle to slightly rise off the peg.

Pulled the valve cover today and could see oil gush out from around the base of the injector when I tried to pump up the rail... pretty clearly a bad o-ring on the #2 hole. Pulled all four injectors on that side and found the top cushion o-ring shot, shaved away to the point that the circle was broken and the sealing o-ring was pushed up into its place where broken!
There was NO metal backing ring behind the cushion ring!

Pulled the passenger injectors since they were modified all at the same time and found the same destroyed upper cushion rings on all of them. Again no metal backing ring on any of them! Some how they were able to hold pressure, even in their distorted condition.
Not sure if the metal ring was unknowingly left off or if it was a different design that obviously doesn't work. The injectors had only being in for about a year and a half.... way premature for failure.

Took lots of pics (of the test rig too) and will post when I finish up the o-ring install. I am using Alliant o-rings as they are appearently the OEM manufacturer of the injectors themselves. The kit includes all three parts of the upper o-ring set - Metal backing, square-cut cushion, and upper o-ring - Middle and Lower o-rings and the copper washer.

Sorry for the long post but people had asked for me to keep them posted. I think it is helpful to others too so that if they encounter similar things, they will have a starting place.

Thanks again to those who got me pointed in the right direction to find the bad o-rings!

God bless,

TC

***Dinner time here on the west coast and the chicken is ready to come off the BBQ!!!

:ford:

 

[Tom S]

Tim some pics of those bad O-rings would be usefull too. What O-rings were on there that did not hold up?

Tom

 

[hotwheels]

Alliant get's the injectors from Cat. So I'm assuming they get the O-rings from them as well.

Where did those injectors come from that didn't have the metal backing ring on them?

 

[bbbxcursion]

Must of been some aftermarket orings, I think the name is dipaco or something like that....

 

[TimC63]

Tom, I have pics and will figure out how to post soon. I noticed that you were able to put images into your Fuel System post and not just links.

Geoff, there probably isn't any secret who sells 130cc injectors but I think it is only fair for me to talk to the builder and possibly get an explanation or response before throwing a name out there. People sometimes jump to conclusions when little information is given.

BB, I have heard that the builder had used Dipacos at one time and had poor results!

TC

 

[Tom S]

Tim store your photos here on PS nation. The when you have the photo up in the normal resized view right click go to properties and copy the link. Then go to your post in another open window click image and paste in the link. I also think Bean/Cass had some troubles with Dipaco o-rings and switched brands away from them a ways back. At least it was not too ugly really just a pain.



Tom

 

[hotwheels]

Tim I agree with what you are saying about getting a response.

I think bean is the only one who really advertizes the 130cc injectors but that doesn't mean anyone else couldn't make them. So rather than assume that's why I asked.

Missing the steel back up ring isn't an o-ring or an o-ring manufactuer's problem. It's more of an install problem. I'd be curious to hear the reasoning why that steel ring wasn't installed. Usually there is always a little divit in the square cut back up ring that goes between the metal backup ring and the main o-ring but unless an o-ring has a lot of miles on them that square cut ring is usually fine other than that. It never seems to really be an issue.

At Seattle Injector we have always used Alliant external o-rings and from what I gather the internals are from Delco or something like that. From what I've heard before I ever started there they used some dipaco internal o-rings and had some problems with them. It was before I ever started so I have no idea if it was the o-rings or the install job but we haven't had any issues with the ones we have now. We do use Dipaco's internal o-rings for the cat and B code injectors and since I've been there never had a problem with them. We also use dipaco nozzles springs due to some problems we had with another manufacturer (I don't know where they came from) and we use Dipaco P&B assemblies as well as Nozzles. Both of which seem to be good quality parts.

 

[bean]

Tim, not sure why there wasnt a metal back up ring on those injs, they are supposed to be there and someone screwed up putting them on. It is not uncommon for the square backup oring to break then let the sealing oring break. There for a good while Dipaco was the only place we could get the orings in bulk from, they seemed to be fine then there for a stretch all of a sudden that ring started breaking on a regular basis. It will usually get cut in two by the metal backer ring. Dipaco has no answers for thier crappy orings that we put on thousands of injs, all we can do is change companies that we got them from. We now get them from Alliant and have no problems. Anyone with orings on thier injs will eventually have a oil pressure problem, not a matter of if its when, sad to say.

 

[Tom S]

Ryan what was the time frame on the bad rings for Dipaco? I was supposed to have the motorcraft ones on mine that I supplied but who knows. The other camp was the ones that did them.

Tom

 

[bean]

I really dont know, I think they were probly all sub par on that top ring but sometime at the end of last year that got horrindus, I had pulled injs back out that had less then 5k miles on them and the backer ring already be broken.

 

[bbbxcursion]

I think I got 15,000-20,000 miles out of the Dipacos before the oil ring broke. One of my buddies got about the same mileage before his were broken also.

 

[TimC63]

Well I was able to talk to Ryan Bean yesterday... only to find that he had already posted a reply here regarding my o-ring failure!

As you can see, he was pretty stand up about it and admits that someone on his end screwed up and there should have been metal backing rings installed on my injectors. Thanks for not playing games Ryan!
Sounds as though I may have eventually had similar issues even if they had put the metal rings on since the cushion rings weren't so good from his supplier either! Oh well, life is hard... and then you replace o-rings! Other than the labor, I don't think there were any side effects, the bits of cushion ring were probably all caught in my oil filter. Oh, there was the brief stopage of my heart when the jostling of the dipstick during the injector R&R caused the o-ring on the dipstick tube to break and subsequently make me panic when saw fresh oil pouring out on the floor when the truck fired up!!!!!!

Well here comes my attempt to post some pretty ugly pictures!!! Bean admits that the Dipaco cushion rings were problematic but I am not sure if any other cushion ring would have held up better in the absence of the metal backing ring...
In addition to the ugly pics are some of the very useful pressure rig I made from Lux' instructions... it is very useful troubleshooting tool!

Here is a close up shot of the failed Upper o-rings on my #2 injector. Note the absence of the metal backing ring.

Here is #2 next to #4... as you can see there isn't much difference.

Here is the entire Driver's side bank, all upper cushion rings shot.. The photo is not too clear but the o-rings had to deform up into where the cushion rings erroded and the metal backing rings are absent.

These are the passenger side injectors, no backing rings here either! Look at how bad off the upper cushion and o-rings were and they still held pressure in a static test. Who knows what leaked and didn't leak when the motor was hot and running???

Here is the whole ugly set. While cylinders #1,3,5,and 7 weren't in much better shape that rail was pumping up to 3,000 psi.


The following photo is of the test rig (a la Kim Lux) I used to pressurize the individual cylinder heads...high pressure hydraulic hose, fittings, a gauge and a grease gun for the source of pressurized oil.

Looking back at my records it looks like I had about 18,000 miles on these o-rings before they gave up.

Hope the photos are informative... On to bigger and better things!

God bless,

TC

 

[Tom S]

Tim those are great photos. A few details about the grease gun set up would be great.

Tom

 

[TimC63]

I will do that Tom!

I was deliberately vague as I wanted to make sure no one thought I came up with the idea of creating the pressure tester. I wanted to make sure I gave credit to Kim Lux but wasnt sure if I could or should link to his webpage since I wasn't sure if that violated any posting rules, etc... I guess that since his website is a public venue, I can say that his website does a great job of giving a mental flow chart of what can and cannot be eliminated as a leak source based on different results of using the tester.

I will post more details (and pics) on the test rig after the weekend... Going camping on the Coast this weekend and the weather is supposed to be GREAT!!!

TC

 

[old man dave]

OK Tim, its Sunday night, wheres the info on that grease gun!!! Looks like oil gallery plug adapted to grease gun thread, 4 or 5K psi guage, shutoff valve and grease gun loaded with 15-40wt. But whats the real story?

And thats the (im)famous Kim Lux who? LOL

 

[TimC63]

Dave, Dave, Dave... who ends their weekend on a Sunday??? Was enjoying the sunny weather through Monday before heading home!

There is no "Real Story!"
You called it dead on. The hydraulic hose has 1/4" JICs on both ends so a JIC-to-#5 O-ring boss adapter allows it to connect to the fuel rail. The Tee allows connecting the 3k psi guage, and a 7k psi shutoff valve allows you to pump the oil rail up to pressure and then lock it down. The grease gun just uses a grease gun whip hose with 1/8" NPT on both ends.

The beauty of the device is that it allows you do a bit more discrete system checking than just a gauge on the whole system.
By disconnecting the HPO hose (from the HPOP) at the 90 fitting on the head, the 1/4" JIC of this rig can connect in its place, isolating that head from the system. With the v/c off, i was able to watch the oil gurgle up from the base of the inj. with the bad upper o-ring as i pumped the grease gun.
Granted, cranking the engine should with the v/c off should have revealed the same thing. In my case, I was able to narrow it down to the driver's side head before ever having to pull a v/c off, as it wouldn't hold any pressure. (It also let me know that the pass. side was not the source of the leak.)
With valve shut off, it can be used as a standard HPO gauge for checking the whole system too.

I am not taking anything away from a gauge set up to monitor pressure at the rail, it is a great idea too. I just saw some advantages to Kim's setup, having a pressure source built into the rig, as more specific system sections can be independently tested.

The most costly parts were the gauge (only liquid filled ones were available at that pressure range - which is good if you will use it to monitor a running engine) at about $35, and the high pressure shut off valve (7k psi) at $32.

Here are some other photos just for kicks!

And finally, here's a pic of the rig being used to pressurize the driver's side head, what you can't see is the end of the 1/4" JIC connected the the existing fitting on the head... I simply removed the factory hose and put the tester in its place.
Also note the highly refined bailing wire hook used to keep the grease gun upright so it wouldn't dump the 15w-40 all over the place!

Hope this info is useful. Sorry for presenting it as a mystery, I was just being careful to give credit to whom it was due and not take it myself!

God bless,

TC

 

[Tom S]

Hmmm, might be time to convert my HPOP guage to work with that set up when I get time.

Tom

 

[chaunbot]

If I remember i thought AE was able to tell you if you were loosing pressure?