HowTo: Stuck Injector Pintle Cap Removal

A few years back I did a full fuel/intake system replacement as part of chasing down a stutter that only showed up at highway speeds, and just replacing all the original stuff in general that was about 20 years old. Part of this was new injectors, swapping in the new style black densos from the old brown ones. (This is on a 5vz-fe 3.4L)

This past weekend I was chasing a lean condition/suspected vacuum leak and decided to check the injectors while I had the plenum off. The first thing I noticed when pulling them out was the tip was bare shiny metal. The black pintle cap was still in the head. The new black Injectors don't have the latch on the caps the old ones do to keep them on.

They were in far enough that nothing was able to grip, and trying to push the injector back onto them wasn't working.

Some internet sleuthing turned up horror stories of pushing the caps into the cylinder and wrecking the valves! But little in the way of pulling them out from this position. After a bit I figured a way to easily get them out.

0. Clean area around the injector ports if you didn't already (I did a poor job of this)
1. Pull off the gasket/seal from the injector

2. Push the injector back into the port/pintle cap without that gasket, you should feel the o-ring pop into place in the cap and the injector should feel seated

3. Pull the injector out again
4. The cap should pull out enough to grab it now. Its hard plastic/metal but try to not damage it too much

5. Push the pintle cap back onto the Injector (line up the notch on the cap with the tabs on the injector)

6. Put the seal back over the Injector


From there you should be good to go again.

 

Interesting

like the injector cups on a 2rz/3rz

Nice fix!