348 fuel injector & intake plenum removal

Well fellers it's Stooge time yet again.

Today we will see how to remove the fuel injectors out of a 348, and how to remove the intake plenum. This it's the only way to do it, maybe not even the correct way to do it, but the way I did it, the Stooge way.

So sit go grab a beer, sit back, and enjoy show and tell time.

Here we gooooo...........

 

First things first. Since we are going to be fooling with gasoline. We will be disconnecting the battery.

Spark + gas fumes = kabloowee = Ernie a craspy critter = not good.

So

Battery gets disconnected.
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You will want to put on a pair of nitrile gloves. You don't want to get gasoline on your skin. Latex gloves will not hold up to gasoline, and the nitrile will. Plus it was something like $5 for a box of 100. So go get a box, and put em on.
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I like to have everything out of the way so I have plenty of room to work with. So We will be removing all of this stuff.
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First thing I unhooked was the Idle Air Control Valves, on both sides of the plenum.

Unscrew the clamps holding the tube to the plenum

Remove the retaining clamp holding it to the plenum. Sorry fellas no pics of this because I left it off the last time I removed the IACV's, but you'll still need to remove it from the plenum. You'll see what I'm talking about when you have to do it.

Next the clamp holding it to the intake tube.

Then disconnect the clip from the IACV and set them out of the way.
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Now unclip the Throttle Position Sensor on both sides.
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Followed by disconnecting both Mass Air Flow sensors.
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For myself I found it easier to unscrew the MAF from the air box and leave it attached to the intake tube. But you could leave it screwed to the air box and unscrew the clamp holding it to the intake tubing.

Anyway you choose unscrew the MAFs.
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Next I loosen the clamp holding the intake tube to the Throttle Body.

BUT!!!

I DO NOT remove it yet.

Why?

Because I have more wiggle room to get it off with the air box out of the way.
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Now head to the back of the air box and disconnect the intake ducting from both sides.
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Then loosen the clamp holding the Secondary Air Injection tubes to the bottom front of the air box, and pop the tubes off.

These are the lines that give you the nice little resonance, through the side glass intake, while the car is warming up.
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Now you can remove the 4 nuts holding the air box in place, and remove it from the engine bay.
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With the air box out of the way I now have more room to wiggle the intake tube off the TB, and I don't have to fool around with trying to get the MAF out of the tube. That is why I like to just leave it connected to the intake tubing.

But first you will need to pop the MAF harness out of the holders on the intake tube. Or you can do it after. I like to remove it first, then wiggle the tube off.

Once I have it off I just lay it on top of the muffler heat shield. I was too lazy to disconnect the oil vapor recovery line from the bottom of the intake tubes. That and it only needs to be out of the way. So why disconnect what you really don't need to, right?
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Aaahhhh.....that's better plenty of room to work with, with all that stuff out of the way.
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Now you will want to disconnect the fuel line from the clamp holding it in place. This is to give your hand access to the clips on the injectors.
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With the fuel line moved aside reach under the fuel rail harness and unclip the injectors. All you have to do in pinch the wire with you finger and apply a little bit of pulling pressure to the harness. This is to keep it disconnected. You DO NOT need to pull hard, just gentle even pressure to keep it disconnected as you go down the line unclipping the injectors.
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I also disconnected the fuel rail harness from the main wiring loom.

The reason I do this is, so that I get a little bit more slack on the harness so it can hang out of the way. To completely remove it you have to disconnect the coolant temp sensors, and those are a bit of a pain to get to. Which I'll be doing a bit alter anyway.

But for now, just disconnect the injector harness from the main loom by twisting the connector counter clockwise until it comes off
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Now this next step will not be necessary for the majority of you.

The reason I have to do it is because I replaced the crapass allen bolts the factory used with some good old fashion 13mm six point bolts. The factory allen bolts are made out of cheap soft metal and stripped out. So I no longer have to worry about that.

Okay.

So.

I next disconnected the throttle adjustment rod from the throttle linkage.

I F you do this BE CAREFUL NOT to fool with the adjustment on the nut, or you will screw up the way the TB's open in correlation to one another.

With the TB adjustment arm out of the way I now have access to the retaining bolts holding the fuel rail to the plenum, and can remove them.

One more thing. This step was only necessary for the rear injector rail bolts. The fronts are a straight shot.
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Now double check to make sure everything is disconnected.

Clear?

Good.

Now get ahold of the fuel rail and pop it out. You may need to wiggle it back and forth a bit to get the o-rings to come loose first. Especially if they have never been out in 20 +/- years.
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Now that the fuel rail & injectors are out of the plenum you need to get them out of the rail.

To do this you simply push off the clip holding the injector to the cup on the bottom of the rail. Just push if off with your finger from the back, and remove it with your other hand from the front, like so.
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Now before we do this next step.....

M A K E

S U R E

Y O U

H A V E

DISCONNECTED THE BATTERY! Go double check now.

We good?

Okay.

Here is where the nitrile gloves will come into play. We never disconnected the fuel lines. Meaning........ there is still fuel pressure in the lines, the rail, and behind the injectors = gasoline WILL be coming out. It may even be a good idea to put. on some eye protection.

Be sure to have PLENTY of disposable rags handy to catch the dripping fuel. Oh yeah and PLEASE do tis on a COLD engine. We DO NOT need an fires.

So....

Place you rag under the injector, then start to twist the injector while wiggling it back and forth, as you SLOWLY pull it out of the cup. You don't want to do this fast because you will get gasoline everywhere if the injector pops out too fast.

So Twist, wiggle, pull, until riiiiiight before it pops out, then SLOWLY remove the injector. This helps to reduce the amount of gasoline that comes out. It won't stop it, just make it much more manageable to catch with a rag.
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And that is how I removed the fuel injectors from my 348,

Stooge Style.

 

But wait just a minute.

Did I say this was a fuel injector AND intake plenum removal?

Why yes, yes I did.

But why?

Here's why.

See what's missing on these two injectors?
How about the caps!
And guess where they went?
Try right down the injector hole INTO the intake ports in the HEAD!

Yeah, a big time pain in the ass. So the only way to get them out is to, you guessed it remove the intake plenum.
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Before I post the plenum removal I just wanted to let you know these are NOT the factory injectors. See I already had my stock injectors removed and had shipped them out for testing and cleaning. The injectors you see are a set of 24/lb Ford injectors Vince gave me to test out. I tried them and the Motronic ECU's HATED them. Threw engine codes on both banks within minutes of start up. The Motronic ecu's could control the injectors, but it could not control the amount of fuel they were dumping, especially when the engine was TRYING to warm up, and at idle. So needles to say I won't be using these again.

 

Okay now for the plenum removal.