How to remove Injector seats

[Jpadie]

In trying to remove the cylinder head cover of my rav4 i am being blocked by the injector seat assemblies.  See photo below. 

The service manual just says

1. Remove the 4 injectors and 4 injection nozzle seats from the cylinder head.

2. Remove the O-rings from each injector

not giving much help on whether there is a trick to the removal of the seats.   But at least there is no Toyota SST or other arcana that is intended to be involved.

I've tried gently, and less gently, prying on them.  And rotating them (the farthest left appears to rotate slightly, but in reality their seating wouldn't allow for more than 15-20 degrees rotation anyway). 

does anyone know how to get these out?  

 

[im_ka]

Hi! With special tool and heavy puller with   vertical movements I did it on d-cat engine very hard.One another tip is to unscrew the injector holder and drive until the pressure shoot out and  the injector remains connected to high pressure pipe.One guy  did so and the third day helped .

[2fastgt4]

There are some very helpful videos on YouTube. Maybe one of them can help you out.

[Jpadie]

thank you.  I was hoping for some rav4 specific tips as the only RAV4 injector video shows a bloke with a steel bar spending 20mins or more per injector.  given that the injector connection is brass, that will definitely damage the threads.  workarounds are possible of course.  

it looks like special adaptors and a slide hammer are necessary.  I had thought of using a puller on the upper thread, but it looks too delicate.  and annoyingly I cannot find 1.5mm pitch threads here in France.  All the hardware shops seems to sell only 2mm thread at M12 and M16 diameters.  

[im_ka]

Hi!Before, I got in some site, how does look this tool and made by self ,than on place modified and welded some parts  for stronger holding.Thrust me not so easy.Only ,if you can get some original.Good luck

[im_ka]

I saw this adapter and how you say can demage tread.I made like a hook and use injector body whole not tread.If necessary I will  try sent some picture how does it look like.

[Jpadie]

@im_ka  - I'd be very interested to see the tool you've built. 

 I have had success with one injector seat so far.  I used mole grips (locking pliers) to attach vertically to the body of the seat.  then used safety cable to wrap around through the mouth of the grips at one end and attach to an engine hoist on the other end.  Then pump up the hoist so that there is vertical force on the injector seat.  a few light taps with a rubber mallet and the injector seat came out cleanly.  

On the next injector seat I noticed that, with the same tactic, the entire car was being lifted of its stand and the injector seat moved not at all!   I shall soak the piece in kerosene or diesel again for a day or so and try again.  

[Jpadie]

In the end I used a hydraulic jack on top of the engine.  Put levers across the cylinder  head cover to spread  the load and prevent  the cover from.being damaged.  Mole grips connected to the injector seat and the hook end of a fabric winch strap between the teeth of the mole grip and the other end tensioned against the lifting arm of the jack.  Pump up and the injector seat releases in jumps.  Helps to spray carb cleaner around the edges of the seats.  And helps to use a rubber mallet to create downward shocks around the seat.  

Once the injector seat is out a little bit you can abandon the mole grips and wrap the winch strap around the sides of the injector seat and connect it directly to the jack.  

On inspection  injector seats 1 and 3 were caked in about 2.5mm of gunk the whole way down.  The others were about 1.5mm deep mostly in gunk.  This softened with repeated soaking in carb cleaner  and was easily scraped off with a screwdriver. 

YMMV. Good luck!

[2fastgt4]

Amazing [emoji51]. I hope u took some pictures or video. I would like to see how u did it.
Seems like a lot of difficult work and patient.