Leaking fuel rail at injector #1- help?

waxman43

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Hi forum. Need a bit of help if you have a minute or two. My mother's 2000 LS V6 sprung a scary fuel leak today and I need a bit of help to figure out my next step. They had a strong smell of gas in the cabin while driving to a doctor's appt, so they pulled over, popped the hood, and called me. When I arrived I started the car and had atomized gasoline spraying into the engine bay. Yikes! After shutting it down and clearing a bit of space, I just had them crank the engine to pressurize the fuel system-- and had found fuel spraying out of the fuel injector assembly at cylinder 1- the front left cylinder from the driver's perspective.

The fuel sprayed out from the blue O-ring in the picture. Am I correct is assuming I have to take off the entire intake manifold and throttle body to get to the fuel rail to rebuild the injector O-rings, or is there some special way to do this for cylinder #1 just to get the car to a garage? I know the right thing to do is likely pull all 6 injectors and replace the O-rings since this is likely age related. Any ideas?

Thanks ya'll.
Chris from Austin

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Yeah, you have to take off at least the top half of the manifold. You have your cylinder numbering wrong. That's cylinder #4. While I'm sure the fuel was under high pressure, I doubt it was actually atomized, since it wasn't coming out an injector nozzle.

Grill
4 1
5 2
6 3
Firewall

This doesn't so much look like o-ring failure as it does the injector separating from the rail somehow. I'd just have it towed on a flatbed instead of trying to rig a repair that's likely to fail while driving.
 
The injectors are installed in the lower intake manifold assembly. It may be tough to salvage the original gaskets for the intake parts,so you may want to order some new gasket sets for upper and lower intake. Probably would be a good time to also replace the PCV hose elbow which sets in the back area underneath the lower intake. There is no need to remove the throttle body, as that is coming off with the upper intake assembly. Good luck.
 
The injectors are installed in the lower intake manifold assembly. It may be tough to salvage the original gaskets for the intake parts,so you may want to order some new gasket sets for upper and lower intake. Probably would be a good time to also replace the PCV hose elbow which sets in the back area underneath the lower intake. There is no need to remove the throttle body, as that is coming off with the upper intake assembly. Good luck.
thanks Mike! Thanks for the tip on the pcv hose. figure I'll do the plugs as well since I'll have easy access.
 
Oh right, those spark plugs! As a rule, I usually replace the right bank's coils while that crap is disassembled, also. Hopefully you can use the manuals to guide you, but it is pretty straightforward. The intake bolts are all around 80 in-lb, so not quite 7 ft-lbs is all it takes. You're luck y'all in TX, since the upper stabilizer brace needs to come off to get at this stuff also. Up in the rust belt area (north of the Mason Dixon Line, I reckon) that part of the job can be very tough. I only have 3 of 7 original bolts, the rest had to be drilled out. How many miles on this car?
 
wonder if that will pop right back down with enough downward pressure/tweaking at different points on the rail? (without taking apart) maybe not a permanent fix,but it might get you buy. are you able to see the bolts securing the rail through the splits in the intake? maybe they need a little tightening.

this pic should be similar, looks like mine IIRC.

s-l1600 (1).jpg
 

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