In the event that you are alert of irregular symptoms on your vehicle, you are right to be preoccupied, because a car represents a huge annual budget and unexpected breakdowns don’t reduce the costs. So what if you find that you have a leaking injector on your Ford Explorer? You most likely figured it out thanks to black/oily drips along your engine unit, or a troubled idle, or unconventional black smoke. These three symptoms are the main symptoms of a leaking injector. As this troubles can lead to more significant engine trouble on your car, we chose to write this article content to help you confirm the failure of a leaking injector and treat it correctly. To accomplish this, we will initially look into the case of gasoline injectors and then at those of diesel injectors Ford Explorer.
Leaking injector on my petrol Ford Explorer
It is fundamental to know that the injectors on petrol and diesel engines are different, the reality is, the difference in combustion between these two kind of engines makes the injection different. The biggest difference lies in the pressure undergone by the injectors, on a petrol engine it will vary between 3.5 bars for indirect injection and 120 bars for indirect injection.
Leaking injector on a petrol Ford Explorer: The different leaks
It should be known that injector leaks on a Ford Explorer equipped with a petrol engine are pretty infrequent. This is as a result of the much lower pressure in the petrol intake systems. Even so, there are two kind of leaks:
- Leakage from the top of the injector:
It is plausible that you have a leak from the top of the injector, this is the part that is attached to the fuel rail, an O-ring will be involved in this. - Leak injector of the lower part:
At last, you may suffer a leak coming from the lower part of the injector of your car, this one will come from the junction with the engine and not with the rail as seen previously.
Leaking injector on my diesel Ford Explorer
Unlike petrol engines, which have spark combustion, diesel engines run on compression. This combustion procedure generates very high pressure in the engine, as do the injectors. On these models, the pressure is more than 10 times higher than on the direct injection of car petrol engines, reaching 1800 to 2000 bars.
Leaking injector on diesel Ford Explorer: The different leaks
In the case of leaking diesel injectors on your Ford Explorer, there are three several kind of leaks:
- Leakage from the injector inlet:
In cases like this, it is an inlet pipe that will deform along with time, generally the leak will be at the clamping point. - Injector return leakage:
As its name reveals, this leakage concerns the management of the fuel return in the injector, this time the injector that leaks on your Ford Explorer will be the result of an O-ring or its plastic tip that leaks. - Injector base leak:
This injection leak is one of the most bothersome, it is the junction between the engine and the injector nose that leaks at a copper seal, you should feel an air noise and a compression loss. - If after examining you have oil leaking but it does not come from your injectors, we advise you to consult this article content on the existence of oil leaking on your Ford Explorer.
Leaking injector on my Ford Explorer, how to fix the leak
And finally, we’re going to look into how to fix a leaking injector on your car. Regularly a leak is linked, as we have seen previously, to a worn seal as a result of the pressures suffered. But think that the pressure in the circuit is monumental, especially on diesel engines. So you will have to take some precautions:
- Lower the pressure before any work is completed…
- Masking you to avoid the risk of fuel spillage
- NEVER work on a running diesel engine injector.
Relating to the repair part of your leak, it will very often be limited to replacing the seals that have failed:
- Find out the source of the leak
- Take apart the injector in question
- Change the corresponding seal kit
- Reassemble the assembly and tighten with a torque wrench in accordance with the manufacturer’s standards.
In all situations, these interventions are not specifically very hard, but if you have the tiniest hesitation in the treatment of your injector that leaks on your Ford Explorer, we advise you to get closer to your mechanic to avoid any bad manipulation that could critically harm the condition of your Ford Explorer.
If you have any further questions about the Ford Explorer, do not hesitate to consult our Ford Explorer category.
