Last week my '02 (5.3, flex) started throwing a P0306 and a P0200 -- annoying, but narrowed down the problem pretty quick. Pulled the injector out of cylinder #6, grabbed my multimeter, and it ohm'd at 200k. "Problem solved!", I figure. "I'll just swap that sucker out tomorrow, and heck, I'll just do plugs and wires while I'm in there, should be a nice easy couple of hours, and I'll be good for winter.."
Order a new injector, put it in with minimal drama, started the truck up... and it ran like crap. Sounded like a vacuum leak, and sure enough, one of the O-rings popped off the injector in #2 when I pulled them up. OK, no big deal, put that one back in, bolted down the rail... same problem.
Wiggle the injectors a bit, and #4 felt loose. Pulled the rail again, sure enough, that one was missing the O-ring on the head side, too (seriously, how does those things come off so !@%&*!@)* easily?)
Repeat the song and dance again, same problem, and now it's #8 that's leaking, it's getting dark out, my trouble light broke, and I figure screw it, I'll just get all new O-rings from NAPA in the morning and fix it when I can see what I'm doing.
All of which is a long way of asking: When installing injectors, is it easier to seat them in the rail and put the metal clip on, then try and line the bottoms up with the head while pushing the rail down, or am I better off pushing them into the head and then lining the tops up with the rail? I've replaced injectors in plenty of other (non-GM) cars with minimal hassle, but for some reason trying to line everything up on this motor is giving me a lot of trouble. Any tips or tricks for getting those lined up and seated right?
Or, is it more likely that the old O-rings are making this way harder than it's supposed to be, and this will just a non-issue once I put new O-rings on both sides of them all?
Order a new injector, put it in with minimal drama, started the truck up... and it ran like crap. Sounded like a vacuum leak, and sure enough, one of the O-rings popped off the injector in #2 when I pulled them up. OK, no big deal, put that one back in, bolted down the rail... same problem.
Wiggle the injectors a bit, and #4 felt loose. Pulled the rail again, sure enough, that one was missing the O-ring on the head side, too (seriously, how does those things come off so !@%&*!@)* easily?)
Repeat the song and dance again, same problem, and now it's #8 that's leaking, it's getting dark out, my trouble light broke, and I figure screw it, I'll just get all new O-rings from NAPA in the morning and fix it when I can see what I'm doing.
All of which is a long way of asking: When installing injectors, is it easier to seat them in the rail and put the metal clip on, then try and line the bottoms up with the head while pushing the rail down, or am I better off pushing them into the head and then lining the tops up with the rail? I've replaced injectors in plenty of other (non-GM) cars with minimal hassle, but for some reason trying to line everything up on this motor is giving me a lot of trouble. Any tips or tricks for getting those lined up and seated right?
Or, is it more likely that the old O-rings are making this way harder than it's supposed to be, and this will just a non-issue once I put new O-rings on both sides of them all?
