More CSI trouble

It wouldn't start again yesterday morning. I knew it was CSI related so I pulled it out and put it in a catch-cup while I cranked it - no fuel. I pulled the fuel source to it and verified that it was getting gas, so my assumptions from yesterday were all wrong. I put a test light on the connector and verified power while cranking. (That's the "STA" wire above.) Then I removed the CSI, filled it with carb cleaner, put power to it, and verified it was working. The only thing left is that it isn't getting ground, which would complete the power.

The circuit to ground is supplied by the start injector time switch. It's mounted in the engine block where coolant can get to it. What's supposed to happen is when the engine is cold, the STJ signal is connected to ground. (The contact by the arrow moves to the right.) When the switch warms up, the contact moves to the left. The resistance of the two coils are both about 80 ohms, so in the "warm" state there's about 160 ohms between the CSI and ground so it won't fire. It's supposed to switch states around 80F. The coils also heat up the switch so if you crank it while cold for a while it will switch to the warm state. This is to keep you from putting too much fuel into the engine and flooding it.

Mine is is the "warm" state mine is in at room temperature. I could only get it to the "cold" state if I put it in icewater. I found one for $20 on eBay so hopefully I'll get this finished this weekend. If the problem persists I'll add a manual switch in parallel to the automatic one so I can shoot a little extra fuel in if it doesn't want to crank.

Cold Start Injector

The used injectors showed up in Saturday, 2 days after I bought them on eBay. Spent all day Saturday cleaning the shop, including pressure washing the floor so I didn't get back on the 4runner until Sunday morning. I checked the used injectors all worked. installed one in place of the plugged one, and put it back together. The miss was gone. Took it for a test run and it ran like a top, pulling like it should up the long hill. Parked it, started it a 1/2 hour later, and it was missing again!

Back in the shop. Pulled the plugs, it looks like #3 isn't firing. Before yanking the intake chamber off again to get to the injectors (2 hour job) I decided to jumper the fuel pump ON and let it run for a long time, which would cycle the fuel through the fuel filter and the fuel system. The idea was to knock whatever crap is in there loose.

I put the plugs back in this morning and it wouldn't start. Sounded like no fuel. I verified it had fire, shot some carb cleaner into the intake and it fired a little but wouldn't catch. I kept doing this and was able to get it started, and it actually ran pretty good. Then it just died and I was unable to get it restarted. I knew it was fuel related, but what? Electrical problem on the injectors because of some sensor (crank, temp, fuel pres?), or low fuel pressure, or low flow, or plugged something??? I checked everything electrical and my vacuum lines - nothing. Then I pulled the return line off the regulator, started the fuel pump, and verified there was fuel flow.

Then I unhooked the cold start injector feed line and there was no fuel that sprayed out. Normally when you unhook something on the high-pressure side there's enough residual pressure that fuel will shoot out, even after several hours. So the pressure at the CSI was low. Hmmm. I pulled the fuel filter thinking it may be plugged from the garbage in the tank (even though it's new) - it was okay. I tried up-ing the pressure by clamping off the return line hose with some vice grips; pressure should must higher now. Still wouldn't fire. Next I completely unhooked the CSI feed line, started the pump, and let about 1/2 cup go into a catch pan. I hooked it back up and it started! My theory is I had some crap plug up the CSI line and unhooking it was enough to flush it out. It ran the one time because I put enough carb cleaner in the intake to get it fired to where the normal fuel injectors could feed the engine. Whew!

Tonight I bought 5 gal of gas because the tank was almost dry, which meant it was sucking more crap into the system. Before I put it in I pulled the pump to inspect the tank. It's pretty clean but I could have done a better job with the pressure washer. If it gunks something up again I'll try to find a radiator shop to vat it out (they're getting hard to find anymore). I called one yesterday and they said it'd be at least $90. I can get a new tank for $180, shipped.

Taxes: Got my last K1 today. Now I can do this for real...

United States of Zimbabwe: I don't think a lot of people get how serious it is that the US credit rating my drop. Once confidence drops our dollar isn't worth as much, which means it'll take more dollars to buy things from other countries, i.e. oil, clothes, autos, etc. Oil is the big one; I predict gas will be $5/gal by next summer. That means anything requiring transportation will also go way up in price, i.e. food, electricity, etc. It all means massive inflation. If you want proof, next time you see me ask to see the Zimbabwe money I have in my wallet.

Found the miss

When I pulled the plugs, cylinder #1 was black. Leakdown was 98% for #1, the rest were 91-98%. I focused on the #1 cylinder... I bit the bullet and pulled the air chamber again so I could get to that injector. I was thinking maybe it was stuck open, causing the plug to foul. I got the injector out and it looks like it's plugged. That's one of the 3 that the guy in Pflugerville said he was able to clean (the other 3 he couldn't clean).

To test it I filled the top with carb cleaner, hooked 12V to the pins, and tried to blow the fluid through. It's definately plugged. You can hear it click when applying voltage, sometimes, and it's weak. The ones he marked "bad" DO flow correctly. I'm guessing they just flowed weak. He said one was stuck open; I assume it wasn't stuck open, just leaking. In any event, I'm not reusing the bad ones.

I can get one for $45 + $15 core locally, or mail order from RockAuto.com for about $37 each with core & shipping. I found another outfit called Fuel Injector Wharehouse (fuelinjectorwhse.com) that has them for $40 with core, shipped so I might try them. Also found some on eBay for $19 shipped but they're not rebuilt. They could be from a truck that has sat like mine and be screwed.

In other news, I sent the IRS a HUGE check today. I had to estimate my taxes since one of my investments does not send out their K1's until April 15! Joy...

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Inflation

FWIW, car batteries are $5 more than they were 2 months ago. (Bought one for the 4runner.)

I road tested it and it's still missing to where it has a hard time pulling itself up a long hill at 60mph in 5th. It's hard to narrow down to the cylinder by pulling plug wires. The coil is hot enough that it'll jump a 1" gap so it's very hard to pull the wires one at a time while it's running without getting shocked. I think I'll try pulling the computer codes; that may tell me more...

So the fed govt didn't shutdown and everyone is claiming they're a hero for avoiding it.

• Democraps in the senate & whitehouse didn't bother passing a budget last year when they controlled both houses. The only thing they can brag about to their voters is that they didn't give the right anywhere near the cuts they wanted ($38 out of $100 billion).
• Republicans caved in. They promised to cut spending, and they did, but they didn't ask for near enough in the beginning and they caved in instead of shutting the fed govt down. As part of the deal they will do an up/down vote on fed spending for abortions and obamacare in the senate.
  

I'm thinking they traded the billions on this bill just so they would force each liberal senator to g on record voting for these issues, which will be used against them in the 2012 and 2014 elections as they attempt to recapture the senate & whitehouse. Issues aside, the bean-counters on the right has always impressed me with their ability to model elections and put the assets where needed to win elections. There's a hell of a lot of money involved in the elections and 100x in the outcome. It'll be interesting to see if Bammi, his teleprompter, and his $1 billion can sway the sheeple again by flooding them with slogans.

Gas tastes worse than I remember

I hooked the battery up this morning and it cranked right up. No missing, even after it warmed up. It's running on fumes so I siphoned some more fuel into the tank, got a BIG mouthful of gas. I've had this happen before albeit I don't think I've ever got that much in my mouth before. It seems to taste much worse than I remember, and the worse part is that the taste lingers. Now I know what it must feel like to have voted for Obama.

ToDo:

1. Get a battery (I've been using my CJ5's battery until now
2. Get insurance
3. Get another charcoal canister
4. State inspection
   

More plugged stuff

I traced the line from the charcoal canister back to the tank. There's about a foot of 3/8" hose at the tank and the rest is hardline. I pulled the hose and it was plugged, but I got the hardline breathing. There was a hard obstruction in the line so I cut it open with a knife just to see what it was. It's actually a plastic tube about 3/4" long that's definitely supposed to be there. At first I thought it might be a one-way check valve, but whatever it was it was plugged. I jammed a scribe through the middle of it and knocked out whatever the obstruction was. Now there's just a hole in the center about 1/10" in diameter. Me thinks this is just a choke to restrict the flow of fuel/fumes to a reasonable level. That should be plenty big to bleed of the fumes but small enough that fuel shouldn't splash through it. There's no mention of this in the factory service manual.

The charcoal canister is plugged and I can't get it unplugged, so I'll either have to find another one or bypass it.

My 3 new (rebuilt) injectors arrived today from RockAuto.com and I reassembled everything tonight. There has to be over 20 items to connect on the air chamber. I missed one; a coolant line that's under the throttle body. I wouldn't have noticed had I put the antifreeze back in. I fixed that and cleaned up the mess. Benny (my renter) is asleep so I'll try to fire it up in the morning. Hope it works; I'm tired of fussing with it.

It'd be good to have another running vehicle since the world is going to explode tomorrow when we have to survive without the fed govt.

Ghosts in the Toy

Sunday afternoon I opened up the shop doors and it was pretty warm out. I'm behind the 4runner and I hear what sounds like a pump running. I've got the fuel injection all torn apart so there's no battery in it, so it's impossible for anything to be non-static. So I thought... I walk around front and gasoline starts shooting out of a hose on the air chamber, which goes on top of the intake. I stopped it by loosening the gas tank cap.

To explain what happened I need to describe the fuel system. The fuel is pumped from the tank to the fuel rails, which connects to the injectors. The injectors need a constant 40 lbs of pressure so they use a fuel pump that will put out well over 40 lbs and have a fuel pressure regulator that bleeds off anything over 40 lbs. The excess is returned through the return line to the fuel tank. The return line actually runs to the bottom of the tank rather than dumping it in at the top to minimize splashing.

When the fuel in the tank sloshes around or gets warm, it releases vapors. These need to be vented before the pressure builds and causes something in the fuel system (like the tank) to rupture. It used to be they just had a breather line that vented this into the atmosphere. But this is an emissions vehicle so it's a closed fuel system. The vapors are vented through a 3rd line at the top of the tank (where vapors are highest) back to a charcoal canister which can store the fumes. When the motor is running it sucks the fuel vapors out of the charcoal canister and burns them in the engine. You may save a teaspoon of fuel per tank; it's more for keeping emissions out of the atmosphere (or your garage).

I had noticed when I removed the fill cap that air hissed out; there was pressure in the fuel tank. This means the venting wasn't working properly. My guess is it was also plugged from sitting so long. So when I opened the shop doors letting hot air in, the tank warmed up and the vapor pressure built up with so much pressure that it forced the gasoline through the return line to the air chamber. It was shooting out because I had a line unhooked between the air chamber and the pressure regulator. (I had to remove it to take the air chamber off.)

I started checking things tonight. The charcoal canister is almost plugged; may not be able to unplug it. Damn thing is over $300, so I'm REALLY going to try to bring it back to life. There's a rubber hose that comes off the tank that's got an obstruction in it that's so hard I couldn't break it with a screwdriver. A foot of 3/8 line is only a buck so I'll replace that. The rest of the lines seem okay.

Injectors:
I got those back today. He said they were the dirtiest he'd ever seen. Normally he cleans them within a day but he worked on these 4 days and couldn't get 3 of them cleaned. Said one was stuck open? He charged me full price ($15/ea); not sure that was fair since he technically didn't clean them... I hooked power to them and could hear them clicking so I don't know how bad they really are. I did verify I could blast some carb cleaner through the 3 "good" ones when they were energized. I ordered 3 more through rockauto.com, $123 shipped with the core charge.