If you are alert of irregular symptoms on your vehicle, you are right to be worried, because a car represents a massive annual budget and sudden malfunctions don’t reduce the expenses. So what if you sense that you have a leaking injector on your Opel Zafira? You almost certainly figured it out thanks to black/oily drips along your engine unit, or a troubled idle, or unusual black smoke. These three manifestations are the main signals of a leaking injector. As this troubles can bring about more significant engine problems on your car, we made a decision to write this article to help you confirm the failure of a leaking injector and handle it properly. To do this, we will first look at the circumstance of gasoline injectors and then at those of diesel injectors Opel Zafira.
Leaking injector on my petrol Opel Zafira
It is essential to know that the injectors on petrol and diesel engines are different, in fact, the difference in combustion between these two sort of engines makes the injection different. The biggest difference lies in the pressure experienced 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 Opel Zafira: The different leaks
It should be known that injector leaks on a Opel Zafira equipped with a petrol engine are rather infrequent. This is as a result of the much lower pressure in the petrol intake systems. Even so, there are two sort of leaks:
- Leakage from the top of the injector:
It is conceivable that you have a leak from the top of the injector, this is the component that is connected 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 occur from the junction with the engine and not with the rail as seen sooner.
Leaking injector on my diesel Opel Zafira
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 Opel Zafira: The different leaks
In the circumstance of leaking diesel injectors on your Opel Zafira, there are three several sort of leaks:
- Leakage from the injector inlet:
In this instance, it is an inlet pipe that will deform after a while, commonly the leak will be at the clamping point. - Injector return leakage:
As its name indicates, this leakage concerns the management of the fuel return in the injector, this time the injector that leaks on your Opel Zafira 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 find an air noise and a compression loss. - If after checking you have oil leaking but it does not come from your injectors, we advise you to read this article on the existence of oil leaking on your Opel Zafira.
Leaking injector on my Opel Zafira, how to fix the leak
And at last, we’re going to look at how to fix a leaking injector on your car. Oftentimes a leak is linked, as we have seen previously, to a worn seal because 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 safety measures:
- Lower the pressure before any work is carried out…
- Covering you to avoid the risk of fuel spillage
- NEVER work on a running diesel engine injector.
Concerning the repair part of your leak, it will regularly be limited to changing the seals that have failed:
- Discover 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 cases, these interventions are not automatically complex, but if you have the slightest doubt in the treatment of your injector that leaks on your Opel Zafira, we advise you to get closer to your repair shop to avoid any bad handling that could seriously harm the condition of your Opel Zafira.
In the event that you have any additional questions about the Opel Zafira, do not hesitate to consult our Opel Zafira category.
