Injector removal tool - (cheapskate version) - photos

   / Injector removal tool - (cheapskate version) - photos #1  

California

Super Star Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Messages
14,761
Location
An hour north of San Francisco
Tractor
Yanmar YM240 Yanmar YM186D
First, I don't recommend this if you intend to re-use the injectors. I had new replacements on hand so botching the old ones wasn't a concern.

This tractor is a YM240, same as a YM2000, two cylinders. I paid $107 each for new Yanmar injectors from a local truck/farm injector house.

I thought I could put a little tension on the old injectors and pop them out. I cleaned a bolt that matched the fuel-return threads and threaded it in by hand to learn how deep it would go (8 1/4 turns). I think at this point the injector is contaminated and shouldn't be returned to service without professional overhaul, in case metal fragments got into it.

Then I threaded the holddown nuts flush to the top of the studs, put on a plate I had with a 1/4" hole, found a spacer (socket) that let the top bolt go in 6 turns, and pulled some tension on the center bolt. Hah. All I accomplished was to bend the plate.

P1590735rInjRem1.jpg

Plan B. I used the tractor's holddown bracket to better support my top plate, and started from the bottom of the threads on the holddown studs. This still didn't apply enough force before I reached the point where I expected I might strip threads. I gave up and went to the front (#2) cylinder.

The front cylinder was easier. Threading the nuts upward to make tension then rapping on the injector with a brass drift while prying upward with a heel bar was enough to make it start moving. But even after it lifted a quarter inch as shown in the picture, it was still a heavy press fit clear up to the top of 1.5 inch lift I needed to get it out of its bore. I didn't dare damage the middle and upper part of the holddown stud threads (needed for reassembly) so I kept swapping spacers above the center bolt and moving the holddown nuts down before making each quarter inch lift.

P1590746rInjRem2.jpg

Finally I applied the same technique on the more difficult rear injector. I used different nuts because I feared stripping threads and didn't want to botch the original holddown nuts. Also because of no clearance to swing the rear wrench when using its open end, I put a 12-point box end on each nut before installing my 'injector puller'.

P1590754rInjRem3.jpg

Pulling all the tension I could get on both wrenches I finally heard it pop loose. The snap was so severe I thought I had snapped a holddown stud, but of course they are in compression, not tension.

This injector was so stiff all the way out that rocking the injector by alternately turning the front and back nut was the only way I could make it move.

When I got it out I saw I had sucked the threads most of the way out of one of the temporary nuts I had used. I'm glad I didn't use the tractors original holddown nuts for this. The studs must be better steel; their threads were unhurt.

The bores in the head were jammed with burned carbon so the new injectors wouldn't go in. This took a long time to chip out. I dropped a big washer down the bore to protect the recess down there where the 'insulator' (gasket) fits. After cleaning the bores, the injectors are only about .010" smaller than their bores that they slide into.

The grooves for the 'insulators' (teflon sealing gaskets at the bottom of the injectors) were clean. The insulators had lifted out intact with the injectors. I can see where cleaning the groove down there in the head that centers them would be difficult if they had disintegrated.

The manual emphasizes fit the fuel lines to the new injectors before tightening the holddowns so the fuel fittings align properly. 14 ft lbs torque on the holddown nuts.

The results were as hoped, the tractor starts easily again. As I described in another thread, I think I carboned up the original injectors running 90% biodiesel (B-90) for a year and the spray pattern had become a squirt.

The manual says to test injectors by viewing the spray pattern, spraying against a sheet of cardboard and with adequate protection to avoid getting diesel injected into your skin. (I used a heavy welding glove and a big piece of cardboard to get my hand far from the spray). So far as I could see all four injectors, two old and two new, all sprayed the same pattern - vapor with a center spurt. It seems that professional testing would be needed to distinguish a bad spray pattern.

Ok, now it's good for another 30 years.
 
   / Injector removal tool - (cheapskate version) - photos #2  
Good for you. That's using the old noggin,lol.
Hopefully i'll never have to change mine out but if I ever do I know how to do it now.
 
   / Injector removal tool - (cheapskate version) - photos #3  
Letting the engine blow them out can be very dangerous and will bend sheet metal one guy found out in his PU. After that he used a piece of plywood.

Glad your safer system worked out well.
 
   / Injector removal tool - (cheapskate version) - photos
  • Thread Starter
#4  
I never seriously considered blasting them out with compression - after my neighbor told me using Ether in the older smallest Caterpillars occasionally will break the injector retainers and shoot an injector clear across the pasture. :laughing:

I thought that technique might loosen the two lower chamber components that are beneath this removable injector. I didn't want a compression leak down where the head would have to go to a machine shop to pull and reseal those components.
 
   / Injector removal tool - (cheapskate version) - photos #5  
Very informative post, thanks.:thumbsup:
 
   / Injector removal tool - (cheapskate version) - photos #6  
I hope I never need this info, but THANKS for putting it down with first class pics to boot!!!!

That is a GREAT tutorial! :thumbsup:
 
   / Injector removal tool - (cheapskate version) - photos #7  
Nice documentation and pics of the project. What are you planning to do with the injectors you took out? If you don't need them for a core charge and weren't going to use them again, any chance getting a look at the inner workings?
 
   / Injector removal tool - (cheapskate version) - photos
  • Thread Starter
#8  
any chance getting a look at the inner workings?
Here's the injector diagram from the YM240 Parts Manual. The Service Manual cautions to disassemble only when submerged in diesel (I assume to prevent corrosion) so I thought I would preserve these intact in case I ever need a core.

According to the Service Manual it should be possible to clean the nozzles if you can find the right materials: "polish the orifice only with a wooden stick lubricated with mutton tallow...". How's that for Old School! I love this tractor. It really is designed for overhaul by the owner if needed, anywhere in the world without benefit of modern technology. They don't build them like that any more.
 

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   / Injector removal tool - (cheapskate version) - photos #9  
I have read of a lot of guys, over the years, loosening the lock-down nuts and blowing the injectors out of a Yanmar with compression, but never, ever, heard of it causing a problem. If no work, they removed the studs and loosened them with a wrench or vise-grips.
 
   / Injector removal tool - (cheapskate version) - photos
  • Thread Starter
#10  
Norm, can you show me where it says that?

I researched here and on Google. Everything I read said they come out without too much trouble unless they have been rusted in for decades. These were rusted in for decades.

My neighbor worked as a professional mechanic in a Deere agency (including Deere's Yanmar engines) and owns 20-some diesel tractors used in his larger orchard operation. He does all his own work. He said don't blow them out, that's how amateurs turn little problems into big problems. I'm not aware of any more credible advice.

I started out pulling the studs and trying to rotate them. The intake is too close to get a wrench or ViceGrip on the injectors, plus the flats on the injector don't extend far enough above the cavity. (see the first photo). I tried 16 inch Channellocks at maximum force and that just gouged nicks in the injector (third picture). Rotating this model injector would need a fancy specialty tool to go down in the cavity and grip those flats.

I think a professional puller tool would need to lift under the 'doughnut' where the fuel enters. I thought I was near to ripping the threads out of the top of the injector, which is unacceptable damage and contamination if it is intended to reuse the same injector.
 

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