OT: General Motors Injector Connector removal.....

[George M]

Gents,
Need some help. Want to tap the wisdom of the board. My friend I sold my 2001 Aurora to has recently spit an OBDII code siting an open #3 injector circuit resulting in an intermittent misfire. The engine is a 4V V8 4.0L baby Cadillac Northstar...great engine BTW.
Just below is a close up pic of the injector. The other night he came over and I removed the engine cover and studied the connector to get it off but came away empty as I didn't want to force anything. Perhaps some one on this great forum..Bill R?...has some insight how to dislodge this connector from the injector. It looks as though this busy connector is almost a housing that slides over and protects the injector underneath. If you look at the pic, there is a tab on the lowest point of the outboard connector that may be the latch to removing interference to get this thing off the injector, but I don't know how the clasp works on this connector and didn't know which way to push or pull on the tab. Any suggestions...want to get the connector off to give it a good cleaning.
Many Thanks,
George
The pic:

http://members.roadfly.com/georgemann/InjectObliqueResize.jpg

[Bill R.]

the caddy has the same but I can't recall off the top of my head so here's what the factory service manual shows for the removal They show putting the squeeze on the sides to remove which makes sense to me...


http://www.bimmernut.com/%7Ebillr/images/George.jpg












Gents,
Need some help. Want to tap the wisdom of the board. My friend I sold my 2001 Aurora to has recently spit an OBDII code siting an open #3 injector circuit resulting in an intermittent misfire. The engine is a 4V V8 4.0L baby Cadillac Northstar...great engine BTW.
Just below is a close up pic of the injector. The other night he came over and I removed the engine cover and studied the connector to get it off but came away empty as I didn't want to force anything. Perhaps some one on this great forum..Bill R?...has some insight how to dislodge this connector from the injector. It looks as though this busy connector is almost a housing that slides over and protects the injector underneath. If you look at the pic, there is a tab on the lowest point of the outboard connector that may be the latch to removing interference to get this thing off the injector, but I don't know how the clasp works on this connector and didn't know which way to push or pull on the tab. Any suggestions...want to get the connector off to give it a good cleaning.
Many Thanks,
George
The pic:

http://members.roadfly.com/georgemann/InjectObliqueResize.jpg

[ryan roopnarine]

whilst you're a passive audience and so i don't have to make another ot thread, bill, is there anything wrong with using conventional ford spark plugs on a vulcan engine that came with the 100k platinum plugs? i can't find any dealer around here that has the platinums for less than $8 a plug.

[Bill R.]

the spark plug thread depth seems very shallow on these newer fords and its very easy to strip a plug, so I would exercise caution when tightening them...
15 nm is the torque for those... Alot of the manufacturers have gone to platinum long life plugs in response to customer whining about tuneup intervals..(note the platinum long life plugs have a full size center electrode not like the skimpy little bosch platinum aftermarket) Toyota has used the 100k plugs for awhile on models that the plugs are difficult to get to. I had them on my previa but I change them about every 20k anyway so I don't use the platinum on it... If I was going to spend 8 a plug, I would probably just spend 12.50 a plug and get the denso iridium plugs






whilst you're a passive audience and so i don't have to make another ot thread, bill, is there anything wrong with using conventional ford spark plugs on a vulcan engine that came with the 100k platinum plugs? i can't find any dealer around here that has the platinums for less than $8 a plug.

[George M]

Bill...am having difficulting applying the pinching technique to the injector connector style in pic. Below are a couple of more pics...a top view and a LH side view. Could you mark up with MSPaint, using a couple of arrows, where I should pinch to liberate this connector? I successfully dislodged the top blue LH piece but this did not free the connector...the small blue retainer is to purely to keep the wire leads embedded into the connector body. I am not seeing the relationship between the service manual pic and the actual injector connector shown.
Thanks,
George
A couple more views of the injector connector:
http://members.roadfly.com/georgemann/injecttopview.jpg

http://members.roadfly.com/georgemann/InjectLHS.jpg

[George M]

Bill....relooking at the pic, perhaps it is the blue retainer, I need to push on front and back "versus remove" to disengage the connector....what do you think?
George

[Bill R.]

http://www.bimmernut.com/%7Ebillr/images/InjectObliqueResize%20copy.jpg
been watching rainman again.....









Bill....relooking at the pic, perhaps it is the blue retainer, I need to push on front and back "versus remove" to disengage the connector....what do you think?
George

[George M]

You are "the best" brother. Many thanks for your help.
Will give that a try.
George

[MicahO]

There're a bunch of long-time motor-heads creating and monitoring this thread, so like Ryan I will not begin another thread for this--

(I mean the above description as a compliment :) )

What do you all think about the current 100K mile spark plug bit? I've now got two cars that have this as a tune up interval. While I'm happy to not have to do much else to the vehicles over that span of time, I tend to think that the plugs would benefit from refreshing at least once, if not 2-3 times, in that 100K mile time span. The long life boogers are more expensive than old technology coppers, but for me it's like the BMW coolant issue - what's a few extra dollars every few years to keep things running tip-top?

Has plug technology really come that far? And what magic have they done to the threads that will allow us to REMOVE the plugs after 100K miles?!?!?!

Just wonderin'

[George M]

my input is you never want to leave plugs in an aluminum head for a 100k mile duration, even independent of what condition they are or how well they fire. Personally, I say remove them an have a look at a min of 40-50k to dislodge the corrosion/bond between the threads. The other thing that occurs is anode/cathode erosion which will change the gap. This has come along way with better controlled combustion and better plug metallurgy however but it is unavoidable when modern high energy ignition systems. If would say remove them if nothing else...consider lightly repasting them with ant-seize (this is an arguable point) and cleaning an or regapping them at a point much less than 100k miles.
George

[MicahO]

my input is you never want to leave plugs in an aluminum head for a 100k mile duration, even independent of what condition they are or how well they fire. Personally, I say remove them an have a look at a min of 40-50k to dislodge the corrosion/bond between the threads. The other thing that occurs is anode/cathode erosion which will change the gap. This has come along way with better controlled combustion and better plug metallurgy however but it is unavoidable when modern high energy ignition systems. If would say remove them if nothing else...consider lightly repasting them with ant-seize (this is an arguable point) and cleaning an or regapping them at a point much less than 100k miles.
George

That's probably the path I will follow. The wife's vehicle is 'ours,' and there is no dealer maintenance on that sucker. So I'm going to be quite retentive in maintaining it. We also drive the piss out of it - 7 months and we're approaching 13.5K miles already! But at 40-50 I expect I'll yank the plugs and make sure things look good.

My car is a lease, which I expect to buy, but it's got dealer maintenance for the first 50K miles (even brake pads and rotors!). I'll start worrying about it if/when I decide if it's a keeper.....

Thanks George--

[Bill R.]

regapping, plugs are such a cheap item especially the non platinum good quality plugs like Ngk that I wouldn't bother ever regapping them , would replace instead... other than that I wouldn't dream of leaving one in for 100k unless I was ready to install helicoils in every hole afterwards. Its strictly a ploy to satisfy consumer demand for long intervals on tuneups maintenance etc.... such as lifetime trans fluid , 12 to 15k on the oil inspection light on the newer bmw's lifetime gear oil , 100k spark plugs and now lifetime coolant. I think they are trying to encourage a 5 year buying cycle on cars. Anyway, back to the plugs I would change at 20 to 40k intervals max... just my own personal choice.. Cheap item, easy labor.








my input is you never want to leave plugs in an aluminum head for a 100k mile duration, even independent of what condition they are or how well they fire. Personally, I say remove them an have a look at a min of 40-50k to dislodge the corrosion/bond between the threads. The other thing that occurs is anode/cathode erosion which will change the gap. This has come along way with better controlled combustion and better plug metallurgy however but it is unavoidable when modern high energy ignition systems. If would say remove them if nothing else...consider lightly repasting them with ant-seize (this is an arguable point) and cleaning an or regapping them at a point much less than 100k miles.
George