Disconnect Fuel line/Fuel Rail and Injectors..How too?

Do you have high miles on your Pri? Seems fairly rare to be replacing fuel injectors. Were you using low quality gas? Have you tried Redline Fuel cleaner?

 

I'm also curious about what issues/observations led you to decide to change the injectors. I've been conducting a bit of an experiment here where injectors removed from a Prius get sent to a shop in Michigan that reports test results before and after professionally restoring them. I end up with the set of restored injectors until somebody needs them, and then their old set gets tested and restored, etc.

So far we've done three sets of injectors that way, and two out of the three actually tested just fine before restoration, so we know they can be pretty trouble free. One of the sets did in fact show problems on the before-restoration test, and that car's engine issues were cured with the restored set, so that shows that sometimes they can indeed be the problem, even if that's rare. Also, the set that was actually degraded was not very much improved by fuel-tank additives, but the off-car restoration did bring them back to spec.

You can see the before/after test reports for those (so far, two good and one degraded) sets, here, here, and here.

After trying a few ways to depressurize the fuel rail, my favorite is just to turn everything off, unplug the injectors, and energize one of them using a 9 volt battery and a couple alligator clips. 9 volts is enough to open the injector, but less likely to overheat it than if you used 12. Remember in normal operation they are only energized for a few milliseconds at a time.

You can listen with a mechanic's stethoscope and may hear a click-squirt as the pressure is relieved. If it has already dropped in the time the preparations took you, then you just hear a click and either way you're good to go. The small amount of fuel got relieved into the cylinder head and will probably evaporate in plenty of time that you won't have any flooded-start symptom by the time you have everything back together.

I show that in a short video I made for an earlier PriusChatter who was doing the work. I haven't put it online yet because I'm not happy with the audio quality and haven't had time to rerecord it, but I can send it to you. It also has tips on good insertion technique and how to leak test before trying to start the engine. One PriusChat member did overlook both those points and ended up both damaging an injector and spraying pressurized fuel during an engine start, both of which are things worth avoiding.

If you are interested in the set of 4 restored injectors that I have from the last go-round, the original deal stands where you get the set for the $83.60 I spent on restoration plus postage ... and send your old ones to Rich, I pay him to restore them, he sends them to me when they're done. These came from a Gen 1 but you can confirm at villagetoyotaparts your part number is the same.

-Chap