Why does nobody talk about how hard it is to find a good fuel injector guy these days?

Last month an old timer at a shop in Bakersfield spent 20 minutes showing me how to clean a set of injectors by hand instead of just swapping them, and he said 'you gotta learn the feel of it, not just the part number.' Has anyone else run into a mechanic who actually took the time to teach something like that instead of rushing through the job?

3 comments

3 Comments

milesbarnes1d ago

Had a guy in Fresno back in 2018 who swore by using a guitar string to clean the tiny ports on old Bosch injectors. He spent a whole afternoon showing me how to match the string gauge to the hole size instead of just soaking them in cleaner. Said his dad taught him that trick in 1973 on a Datsun 510 and it never failed him. Made me realize half the battle is knowing how the fuel sprays out, not just plugging in a new part.

kimblack1d ago

I read this thing once from some old diesel mechanic in a forum, he said the Datsun 510 injectors from that era had these tiny brass nozzles that would warp if you soaked them too long in certain cleaners. He used 0.010 inch guitar strings on a G-series Bosch injector, said the E string was always the go-to for the main hole. Never thought about the gauge matching thing until now, but it makes a weird kind of sense.

charlie1981d ago

Man that guitar string trick is the real deal, I've seen guys absolutely ruin injectors by drowning them in harsh cleaners when a light pass with the right gauge wire does the job. It's the kind of feel that only comes from someone who's burned their hands on a hot injector a hundred times before they got it right. Hard to find that patience in a shop these days when everyone just wants to upsell you a rebuilt set and move on to the next ticket.