One day the engine is fine. I go out the next morning and start the engine and it idles VERY ROUGH! I make it to work and as I’m pulling into the parking lot a friend of mine says he saw a lot of white smoke coming out the exhaust pipe.

I turn the engine off to look under the hood to make it look like I know what I’m doing. I let the engine set for a few mins then start it again. My friend is standing behind the car and said when the engine started he could see and smell unburnt fuel come out the tail pipe along with a lot of white smoke.

thinking a head gasket may have blown the first the thigh I did was check the oil level on the dip stick. The level was perfect and the oil itself looked just fine. Nothing to indicate water in the oil.

what do you guys think? Head gasket? Fuel injectors? Any thoughts?

 

Either fuel injectors or fuel pressure regulator.

Most likely a fuel injector.

remove the vacuum hose from the fuel pressure regulator. If there is gas in the hose is the fpr.

Otherwise, fuel injector. These are failing consistanly now.

Do you rely on a mechanic, or do your own work?
Can you remove the upper intake manifold?

 

I’ll have to find a mechanic to replace the back 3 injectors. I’m the reason there are professional mechanics.

 

I would be glad to do this for you, but where is your location? I am in the East MD.

 

You could try to remove the front 3 spark plugs.

We will be looking and sniffing for evidence of leaking fuel from one of the front injectors.

I would wait till the engine is stone cold.
Then start the engine, then stop it immediately.

Remove all three injectors.

look for a wet one. Or one which stinks more of gas than the other.

You have a 50 percent chance that you can fix the issue your self. If all front injectors seem ok, chances are that it's one of the back ones.

There are other maintenance items which should be done while the manifold is off.

1. Rear valve cover
2. check knock sensor
3. Clean out egr system.
4. replace all three rear injectors. Once one leaks, the rest will also leak soon.

The manifold will need to he removed several times if you don't fix all of these while the manifold is off the first time. This is basic stuff the car needs after 20 years or so. The car will be much more reliable afterwards.

 

Same thing happened to me not too long ago. Was the fuel injector pintle cap which is the little plastic filter thing on the end of the fuel injector. It had become brittle and kind of broken off. I had a code thrown which told me which cylinder was causing the issue so you may want to check for codes which could help you narrow down which one. Mine was unfortunately one of the rear ones so had to remove the UIM but if it's a front one it should be a piece of cake to change out.

 

Injectors, same thing happened to me. Replace all of them if u can.

 

It's better to do the injectors once and all of them at the same time. The last thing you want to do is, do one and find out the other one is about to take a crap on you and you'll have to go and Tear the mannifold off to do the rear injectors one at a time, when it all can be done once.

 

Yes definitely do all the rears at once if it happens to be a rear one that failed. But if it is a front one I would just do all the front ones and not worry about the rear ones for now as taking off the UIM is quite a bit of work if it's your first time doing it.