Rant: The old timer who showed me a trick for stuck injectors on a 7.3 Powerstroke

Back when I was working at a shop in El Paso, we had a 2002 F-250 with a 7.3 that just would not give up its injectors. I was about to pull the whole damn valve cover and fight with it for hours. This old guy named Ray, who used to run the place, saw me struggling. He told me to get the engine good and hot, then shut it off and immediately crack the fuel line nuts on the stuck injector just a quarter turn. The heat and the pressure still in the rail would push it right out. I thought he was nuts, but it popped that injector free in maybe 2 minutes flat. Saved me a whole afternoon. Anyone else got weird old-school tricks that actually work?

3 comments

3 Comments

west.wendy2mo ago

That trick would blow the seals on a hot injector.

viola_butler2mo ago

My buddy tried something like that on his old truck last summer. He was convinced he could clear a clog by revving the engine super high when it was already overheating. We heard this awful pop and hiss from under the hood. Cost him like eight hundred bucks to fix all the damage, the seals were totally fried. He learned that lesson the hard way for sure.

gibson.robert1mo ago

Was this on an old Chevy or Ford? Ive heard those older 350s will blow a head gasket if you look at them wrong when they're hot. Did he end up replacing the whole cooling system or just the seals? Eight hundred sounds about right for a shop to do that kind of work around here, parts alone for a full gasket set on my buddy's Ram were pushing four hundred before labor.