Day two’s goal was to run the fuel injector cleaner through the injectors and then swap out the plugs.
I was all set to purchase a professional style fuel induction cleaning rig when I came across a few posts about using an old R-12 can tap and a can of fuel injector cleaner from Napa auto parts. R-12. For those that don’t know, is the refrigerant used long, long ago, in a land far away back when we didn’t care about the ozone layer or global warming… at least that’s one of the reasons cited to replace the stuff with R-134a, which they are now looking to phase out as well. But I digress…
With the R-12 being unavailable to the common man for the past few years, the hardware is just as hard to come by, so finding a cap tap on the shelf at your local auto parts is near impossible. Oh yeah, they can order it, but it’ll cost you over $50… not exactly a bargain.
My father used to have a can tap for the R-12 cans due to driving older cars with tired A/C systems, so last weekend I dropped him a line asking if he still had it. He found it out on the garage and he brought it with when Him and my Mother came to visit. I had purchased a can of the cleaner earlier in the day from Napa to do a test run on my truck and it worked great. Pull the fuel pump relay, screw the end of the fill hose into the fuel rail port and tap the can. Started the truck, it runs for about 5 minutes on the can of cleaner, then stalls out when the can runs dry. Job done.
I packed up the can tap and shipped it down to the rental house in Georgia. It was delivered Wednesday afternoon, so after I procured another can of cleaner from a local Napa store, I was all ready to go.
I got home from work, pulled the fuel pump fuse, checked to make sure the fuel rail was not pressurized, and hooked up the can tap. I put in the can of cleaner, tapped it, and fired up the car. It ran for about 5 minutes and stalled out. I pulled the can tap off, replaced the fuse, and started the car up again. It still had a miss, at least one cylinder off, but I figured the cleaner wouldn’t fix the problem, and possibly make it worse by fouling a plug or two. Next step was to swap out the plugs, once the old plugs were out, I’d be able to read them and see what’s been happening in the cylinders. I’m was hoping to find a carbon fouled plug instead of a lean burning plug, which would mean the fuel delivery is good, but the spark was off at some point to allow the plug to foul. But yesterday’s repairs should have fixed that issue. I let the car cool down for a few hours, then swapped out the plugs, pretty simple task. Finally got it all buttoned up and started it up…
It fired right up and settled in to a nice smooth idle, no miss…
To say I was excited, was an understatement. I took her out for a victory lap. It was running good, a little stab of the throttle broke the rear tires loose. I finally had a Corvette!
Now the car had the go, next task is to make sure it’s got the whoa. It feels like the brakes are a little off, so no long drives yet. Till tomorrow…
Parts replaced today:
Spark Plugs $25
Parts cost so far: $145
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