Hey guys, a question for the experts here. My plans to work on the car all winter got ky-boshed and with the slightly warmer weather I am only now getting back to finishing what I started in the fall. I hope to be able to drive the car again in 2-3 weeks.

As of right now I have a set of valve covers and an engraved plenum that I refinished myself over the winter and I am installing them as part of an engine-bay clean up with the idea that I don't have to be embarassed to open the deck lid and show the little 2.8 off. I know it's nothing special, but hey... it's special to me.

I'm at the point where I've got the engine bay stripped with some parts cleaned and surface rust cleaned up (under the battery). My concern is with regards to dealing with the fuel system to complete the valve cover job. As of last night I am at the point where I have everything off down to the middle plenum and fuel rail. Other than doing a fuel filter I've never been into a fuel system myself so I'm a little nervous here and don't want to screw this up.

I know that the fuel rail and middle plenum have to come out to do the back valve cover. I have a full intake gasket kit and the rubber valve cover gaskets from Rock Auto. I also ordered 6 pairs of injector o-rings, so I'm good to go there. My fuel pressure is drained (I made sure of that before changing the fuel filter yesterday) so I'm ready to get the rail out.

My plan is to disconnect the two hard lines at the fuel block (leaving the fuel block on the rail) and disconnect the cold start at the rail and pry the rail out with the injectors still attached.

Here's the big question: when I'me ready to re-install the fuel rail and injectors I know I have to replace the fuel injector o-rings (which I have). I remember reading somewhere over the past couple of weeks to lube the o-rings before re-installing but I can't for the life of my find where that thread is to go back to or remember what it said to lube the rings with.

My second question: is there anything I should do to the injectors while I have the rail out (soak them in something to clean???) If yes what should I use? I don't really have the money to send them out right now and I think they should be ok to be put right back in.

Third question: with the rail out for the purposes of doing the valve covers is there any need to remove the clips from the rail and remove the injectors from the rail and replace those o-rings in addition to the lover ones? I don't see any evidence of a current leak, and would rather not mess with anything that I don't have to - that is unless I have to... or really should.

Here's what all this work is for, my refinished covers and plenum.



And a photo of where I'm at in the engine. This is before scraping at that rust, cutting out some rot under the battery and cleaning it up / wiping it down and priming it for paint.


The engine bay is getting a fresh exhaust heat shield, coil, dizzy cap/rotor, wires, plugs, cleaned up muffler heat shield/blower pipes/throttle body and refinished stock air intake. I am re-routing some vac lines to clean up the look as much as I can relatively easily, and I still have to pull the EGR valve to clean it up as well.

This is just what I had on my phone to suppliment my wall of text. My main journal thread will have a bigger update when I get some time with everything that I've done and some of the stuff that I haven't talked about here.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[This message has been edited by Ry86GT (edited 03-25-2013).]

You can lube the O rings with motor oil or a small amont of petroleum grease.

When I re-did the gaskets on the top side of my 2.8L V6, I replaced all 12 injector o-ring gaskets. Most kits will come with all 12 anyway, so there's no reason to skimp on them.

I lubricated them with common fresh engine oil.

I let them soak in common fuel injector cleaner, sitting pintel (the actual injector side) down into the vat. I've read that letting the entire assembly soak can damage the small screen that is on the rail side of the injector. I had no issues doing it the way I described above.

The little metal lock tabs do not have to be on the fuel rail. They were put there when the car was assembled for ease of assembly on the assembly line. The o-rings themselves is what seats the injectors into the rail and the intake. Some people remove the lock tab clips. I kept mine on.

If the car has relatively high mileage on it then the fuel rail may seem like it's "fused" to the upper intake. Just really wiggle it after you get the bolts out and it'll eventually come out. Don't force it though. Firm wiggle. You don't want to damage the injectors.

Thanks guys, motor oil it is.

How long did you soak them forin the cleaner? I will do the same, is a couple of hours good enough, like while I do the rest of the work that needs to get done? I will put some fuel system cleaner in a garbage tupperware and just let the lower end soak keeping the upper end dry and replace the o-ring on each end. I have 6 pairs of o-rings, so enough for each end of each injector.

Good job on painting your engine cover and valve covers they look great!

Thanks. These are the first photos of them I posted. It was a lot of work and I tried my hardest to polish them - I wanted them to shine, I'm all about the small subtle touches that only owners would notice. However I found in the plenum especially there were lots of pin holes in the aluminum and as I got shinier and shinier it only looked worse, so out came the sandpaper again and erased a full day of manual labour lol. Looking back at it I'm glad I tried it, and I agree I think they look great compared to how I got them.

My buddy blasted them for me at his work, and I did the rest myself at home.

I let mine soak for two full days.

Napa sells some grease called Sil-glyde. I use that stuff on almost everything.

You don't actually need to remove the middle intake, or the fuel rail. You just need to loosen them up a little to get the needed clearance. Just FYI.

As for injector lube, just about any automotive lubricant should work. I have personally used motor oil and wheel bearing grease, with good results.

[This message has been edited by Blacktree (edited 03-25-2013).]

Here's a tip that could save you some frustration. Don't disconnect the fuel lines at the fuel rail. The sections of fuel lines that are screwed into the rail are flex lines that attach to the rigid lines near the battery. I would recommend that you disconnect the fuel lines there, not at the rail.

Oh and another tip, while you have the rail and injectors out, you can clean out the injector bosses in the lower intake with Q-tips and lacquer thinner. But you will go through a LOT of Q-tips (they get dirty quick).

[This message has been edited by lateFormula (edited 03-25-2013).]

Well it's too late for that tip... I was already out working on the car by the time you posted that and didn't get to see it until this morning. I did disconnect the lines at the rail. Is that a problem now? I disconnected the two lines from the fuel block and left the fuel block on the rail. Any special o-rings I need to replace on those fittings now that I've done it that way? They seemed to have had something on the threads, blue loctite? They were a relative pain in the ass to break loose. if I need to I guess I can disconnect them at the battery, take the lines out and reconnect them to the fuel rail on my bench, and re-install it like that.

When I disconnected the cold start injector on the rail I had to pull up on it a bit then it rotated back out of the way pretty easily. I'm debating whether I should delete it or not.

It was about an hour to get me from that last picture I took to the point where the lower intake was out and I was undo-ing the valve covers (remember, this is my first time...). Then I spent another 45 minutes or so fighting with that lifting bracket at the forward most side. It needed to come off, in my case it was blocking the rear valve cover on the head, and there were 2 nuts on studs that were all rusted. I got both top nuts off, then the whole stud came out with each bottom nut. I don't see how I could have fought with that with my deck lid and middle intake in without making a lot more frustration for myself.

Here's where I'm at now.



The valve covers are unbolted and ready to be pulled, they're just sitting there to things covered up for now. Everything that I planned to clean up/paint or replace is off at this point other than the spark plugs, distributor cap/rotor and the EGR valve. I've been trying to find a cover for the EGR valve for about 4-5 months now but I keep coming up empty handed.

I was going to retain the plastic vacuum lines because they looked to be fine, but one shattered in my hand when trying to pull it off at the EGR solenoid so it looks like I'm going to have to make a couple of lines.

I have some syl-glide on my shelf! I use it for brakes and other things. I think I'll go with that, I don't know why I didn't think of it.

[This message has been edited by Ry86GT (edited 03-26-2013).]

One thing I did when I had the rail/injectors out was to check the spray pattern and volume check them against each other.

To do this:

With all injectors in the rail and the rail connected to the fuel supply lines, but not installed in the lower intake,

1) Run the fuel pump
2) Drink a smirnoff ice, or otherwise clear bottle of liquid (that's the fun part)
3) Get a spare injector connector lead, connect to a 9 volt battery for X seconds. Mark the bottle and repeat to check flow against other injectors


Do I need to say take all precautions (Including fire extiguishers etc?), eye protection etc.

You can easily see the spray pattern in the bottle.

This is how i did it:

http://www.westcoastfieros....TID=1625&PN=1&TPN=10

Chay

There are supposed to be O-rings on the fuel lines. But they've probably deteriorated by now. You should be able to get replacements from the Fiero Store or Rodney Dickman.

[This message has been edited by Blacktree (edited 03-26-2013).]

I checked last night. There was a brown o-ring on each of the hard fuel supply lines and a rubber-like washer under the cold start fuel supply and they appear to be in perfect condition. I should be able to re-use them then right? I'll lube them up before putting it back together like I am going to do with the fuel injector o-rings.

The injectors started their soak (bottom side only) in injector cleaner last night.