Well today was educational, frustrating and down right angering.

Lots of things happened, but I put them in my other post as this one is specifically to address the below issue(s).


So I had to remove my header and to my dismay/surprise I find about a pint of gas sitting in it by way of the gas getting into my eye (yay).

So, by the looks of things I have/had a stuck injector or the fuel distributor was not working correctly. This engine is a fresh rebuild so the heads are very clean. This made it easy to decide which cylinder was the offending one as #4 was wet and dirty. I cranked my engine over a few times with the header off to see if I could get the fuel to pour out and of course it did not. Now it acts just fine.......but still wont start.


Any ideas on how the gas got there?

leaky injector / clogged open.

too high of fuel pressure on that one injector, keeping it above opening pressure.

Combine either of those with no spark, you'll get fuel leaking out the exhaust port. Now keep in mind, you have to have a lot of fuel not being burned to get a bunch in the header. I'd look at no spark, since you've definitely got fuel.

CIS is Constant injection system. So even if you're not getting spark on a cylinder (or all of them), it's still going to pour fuel into a cylinder (or all of them) like a small fountain.

Did you prime the CIS by lifting the fuel monitoring plate before you started it. I doesn't take long for the gas to really add up, the fuel pours out of those injectors. If the intake valve was open while you primed it fuel would of eventually end up in your headers.

Well, I am getting spark. And, it appears that I am getting fuel so I am thinking that the not starting problem may be due to the valves not being in adjustment.

As for the fuel in the header, I am wondering a few things:
It is CIS, BUT it does not pore gas at a constant rate. With the pedal down yes, but my question is will it flood my exhaust just sitting there?

Mainly, I am wondering if my fuel distributor is the bad thing, or the injector, or anything at all. Maybe I flooded it while trying to start it for so many times when it would not catch. More info tomarrow maybe.

I would be mindful of oil dilution or cylinder wall washdown

90% of fuel problems are caused by the ignition. Check to see you have a flaming, raging spark before ripping into your CIS. Then check the flapper door to see if it is closed. That means the fuel meter is working. Check the offending injector. If your really brave, I have an article someplace around here on rebuilding the CIS. It may be on PDF, can't member.... sick...fever....chills... sweats...aauugh

Prime? Ah, no. Should I have? Should I still? Could my other injectors not be getting fuel? I did not know I needed to prime.

More information please...I don't know what I don't know about CIS

I never primed mine, but you can pull the injectors, place them in glass containers, pull the coil wire, and turn the car on. Check for leaks first, then check for funtion. gots to die now.

I rebuilt it as far as I was told is possible (no distributor disassembly). I checked ignition yesterday and had a good spark after some adjustments to the points. I am still leaning toward the valves and low compression. My other post addresses some of this.

As for oil dilution, its all coming out tomarrow anyway.....read my other post about ignition issues.

Rick,
Are you on antibiotics? Do you know if it is viral or bio? No trotts or vomits is usually garden variety virus. Sorry you are not feeling well.

Always need to prime first if the fuel line was ever disconnected from the system. Also this is a way of testing to see if all the injectors are flowing at the same rate. As the Alien said pull out the injectors and place them in separate containers, I like the little 6oz plastic water bottles, turn ignition on to get the fuel pump going reach your hand into the back of the airbox intake and push up on the plate hold it until all of the injectors sing and are in harmony. Check your bottles to see if they contain equal amounts of fuel.

Another thought if your system wasn't primed it may not be getting the fuel to run on and it is trying to start solely with the cold start valve which really pisses out the fuel. I always disconnect my cold start valve by unplugging it when ever I do any prolonged cranking on the engine, (like when I am building up oil pressure to purge my turbo feed line and prime my turbo after sitting over the winter).

Chappy,
These are great tips. I will try them tomarrow. At least your version makes sense. My version involved a conspiracy with the catholic church, Da Vinci, and a bunch of religious people

Though it was allergeis.. Sneezed hard for a whole day. Turn into cold symtoms. Had to drive 180 miles to a meeting today. It's just a cold but that didn't help, I'll look for the CIS rebuild stuff. It may be in print. I can fax it tomorrow. I'll watch your thread to see if you figured it out.

Watch those consperacy shows, their very convincing.

I am so FUCHED!

So I decided to bleed my system which required pushing the plate in the air box up. "Wow" I thought, "that is stiff." And it was. I recalled that when I had the system apart I depressed the penile looking protuberance from the fuel distributor so that it went in......and it stayed there. I was concerned that I destroyed it at that point with that innocent action, but I figured that maybe there is no spring in there and it was pressure dependent.

Am I wrong? Is there a spring?

Fast forward to this morning, I reach in to find the plate very difficult to move. Hard enough that I looked in the book and questioned the obvious air flow direction as it would not budge......right away.

So it budged....and did not return to the normal down right position. So I pressureized the system and listened as this horrible, demonic bagpipe sound came from the unit. The penis did not protrude.

AM I TOTALLY SCREWED!?

The only thing that I can think of that would not spell complete disaster is that maybe the pressure had not built up yet as there was air in the system still. This may explain the bagpipes, but it could have been fuel turbulence. I am not sure as there theoretically should have been gas pumping out of the injectors, but none came out of the cylinders.

Any ideas as to what is going on and am I completely screwed? This part is not cheap or easy to find and thay say that you can not disassemble and fix anything inside.

I am soo friggen bumed. This is a potential show stopper.

First of all the plate moves up and is as light as a feather, the slightest touch and it should raise. The sound is most likely the injectors because they sing (like bag pipes)when injecting but if no fuel is coming out I havent a clue.
I would keep all of the fuel lines connected and separate the fuel distributor assembly with the plate from the airbox and see whats binding that thing, it may be something simple.

Sixerdon talked with me and two fellas on the bird board educated me on the construction of the dist.

Basically: no spring, it is pressure that pushes it out. Also, the piston can be taken out with out disassembling the whole unit (which is discouraged).

Soooooo, I plugged the outlets of the dist and pressurized the unit. After a few jolts of fuel pressure it came out. I extracted the piston and cleaned the piston and the bore. I reassembled everything and it works now......man I can unpucker now for a bit.



Next question: How can I clean the injectors? I have 1 anfd 4 that are flowwing about 1/2 the volume of the others. I will swap the ports that they are on to see if it is port or injector/line specific.

Good Job on cleaning the piston. I think I need to do that to mine this time around as my flap is sticking a little and does not have the usual bounce under zero pressure. Bring your injectors to a diesel truck rebuilder. They can clean them cheaper than anyone. I'll be out of town all day tomorrow, but if you want the rebuild info, pm me a fax #.

You can try a high dose of techron or have them done at the truck shop.....

FYI - Almost every VW Rabbit/Jetta or 924 I have werked on has needed the plunger cleaned. When the car sits the fuel that is on the plunger gums up and causes it to stick. As for the injectors that is most likely the same issue. Gas left a little gumming on the needle and needs to be cleaned. My method has been to drain the tank, put a couple of gallons of kerosene in it and run that through the systems. With the injectors out of the engine and placed in a plastic bottle you can observe the spray patterns and also see if any are leaking after the plate is dropped to the "off: position. As for the bottles, the small Gatorade bottles are great because you can drill a hole in the lid for the injectors to fit through and it will be held in place on its own.

Hey Mikez it would be really "dope" if you put a spinner on the end of that supertrap! Bling that thing YO!

Thanks for the good tips. I may try soaking htem in chemtool. It cuts varnish very well.

First, I need to switch ports to see if it is the port of the distributor or the injector.

The injectors have a very fine filter inside that is often full of crud. I clean them by lifting the pin on the end very carefully using a piece of thread or fishing line, then blasting carb cleaner and compressed air thru them. The pin is spring loaded and can be lifted about 1/16", just be carefull not to scratch it or the injector will drip.

As always, thanks Ed

CIS injectors are relatively cheap.

Ya, but $44 is still more than I have to spend.

That's about one pint of 0+......

I'm A+ so not a very high demand. I think Aaron is O+, though.

Resolution (for now I am sure):

So I swapped my 1 and 4 injectors to different ports on the fuel distributor. this yielded the same results in those particular injectors which, luckily, ruled out the fuel distributor as the culprit. So, I removed 1 and 4, sprayed out their hoses, cleaned them like Ed said, soaked them while I attended to a customers tranny, instaled and flow tested them and all six are the same now.

Thanks fellas, I really learned a lot about CIS.

You still have a no start?

CIS?

I know this may be rudimentary, but have you checked for a blown airbox or massive intake manifold leakage? Either condition could prevent the car from starting.

Do you have a helper? Could you have a helper crank while you poke around the engine compartment? On a blown airbox, I have held the thing together while the owner cranked and she started right up no problem. He had to buy a new airbox. I installed one of the pop off valves to prevent this in the future, but for some reason the pop-off valve didn't stick the first time. I had to re-glue that bastard back in. With the leaking popoff valve, the car wouldn't start either.

Without a good seal, the plunger won't move and the car won't get any (or enough) fuel.

Good luck to you and I hope it's not your airbox as those are kinda pricy. (However, JB WELD works wonders)

Hey John,
I am pretty sure it will start now. I have not tried for a few reasons. One, my valve cover was leaking so I had to address that first. Two, I have a tranny that I am rebuilding for a customer and that needs to take priority for now. I may start it tomarrow, though.

Good luck with it.

Post some pics of it running.

Well, not pics of it running today......I will start another post