Fuel rail removal

[Skinneroo]

One of the fuel rail bolts has sheared.

Can anyone give me a quick guide to removing the manifold so that i can drill the stud out?

Many thanks, desperate 🙏 

[rum4mo]

You'll need to buy in a new set of bolts, injector seals and new O-ring seals for the pressure/charge pipe, I've not done this job yet, so I can't help - no doubt Erwin Skoda will keep you right for a few £s.

 

Oh, and I bought a set of 4 inlet gaskets as it might not be clever to reuse the original ones.

 

Maybe even, as you might be "first man in there" take some pictures of the inlet area to let us see if there is significant build up of carbon in there yet.

 

Edit:- I would not expect the sheared off bolt shank to cause you much trouble now that it has snapped its head off, you should be able to "walk" it out using a small punch etc.

Edited 23 July, 2023 by rum4mo

[rum4mo]

Notes that made up in preparation for doing this job, but in my case hopefully before a bolt fails!  Just in case you need it.

 

Parts required:-

1)      Fuel rail securing bolts 4 – off  N 105 464 03 

2)      Inlet manifold port seals 4 – off 036 129 717E 

3)      Charge pipe top seal WHT 001 386 (44mm) 

4)      Charge pipe lower seal WHT 003 247 (65mm) 

5)      Coolant G12evo

HP fuel rail securing bolts torque 8Nm + 90deg in correct order       1             3

                                                                                                                      4             2

Coolant pipe bolt torque 8Nm

Inlet manifold bolts 8Nm start at centre and work outwards in both directions   5  3  1  2  4

Lubricate charge pipe O-ring seals with clean engine oil

 

Note, coolant needs to be removed before starting to remove the inlet manifold.

 

You will have to add in a set of 4 "bits" for injectors, ie seals etc.

 

This seems to be the other parts that you will need, only you will be able to work out which or how many injector "bits" you need, but if it was me, I'd be replacing them on all 4 injectors:-

04E998907A    Repair Kit                                                         4-off (one per injector)        £46.80

04E133036A   Support Element  (clip for injector<>rail)           4-off (one per injector)       £19.16

These prices are over 12 months old.

 

Maybe after you sort this out, contact DVSA, and Skoda UK.

Edited 23 July, 2023 by rum4mo

[Skinneroo]

Absolutely mint,top marks 👌 

I have removed all the bolts and the coolant pipes from the upper part of the inlet manifold. 

It still seems reluctant to come off,is there anything underneath that needs removing?

Rain has stopped play at the minute 

[rum4mo]

Sorry, no not the moment.

[rum4mo]

Charcoal filter (and pipes) and fuel pressure sensor lead removed?

 

(taken from the script covering removing the inlet manifold).

 

Edit:- well EVAP solenoid stuff! Inlet manifold sensor lead, TB module lead.

 

Edited 23 July, 2023 by rum4mo
added content

[rum4mo]

Any progress on this yet?

[Skinneroo]

Sorry for the delay in responding. 

I have had the car taken to a local garage, i just simply haven't got the time to do it. 

I'll post the latest prices for the parts. 

 

Thanks for your help 👍 

Edited 25 July, 2023 by Skinneroo

[rum4mo]

Good stuff, unfortunately yet another one that has escaped the VW Group service/repair loop - so not accepted as being their problem - but that is the way things go when you need it back on the road ASAP.

[Skinneroo]

Correct, plus I couldn't risk the extortionate labour rates. 

It's definitely a hazard though. 

Should time not have been an issue and was doing the work myself i would have ordered some 10.9 or 12.9 bolts to put my mind at rest. 

[rum4mo]

I'd think that you would have had to work around not having the correct tooling to get the injector clip part off/on, but that is just a calculated guess.

[Skinneroo]

What a fiasco. 

Garage that I use have phoned me today to inform me that they have had to order a new fuel as the old rail has bent. 

I can't see how the rail could have bent, I'm going to get the old one back of course ,so I can examine it. 

I'm going to send an email to skoda uk about the issue. 

[Ootohere]

@SkinnerooWho are you telling, Skoda CZ who know about the issue, or Skoda / VW UK that could not care less?

 

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/468348-fuel-rail-leak/page/10

 

[Skinneroo]

3 minutes ago, toot said:

@SkinnerooWho are you telling, Skoda CZ who know about the issue, or Skoda / VW UK that could not care less?

 

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/468348-fuel-rail-leak/page/10

 

Don't think I will bother wasting my time. 

[Ootohere]

I would tell VOSA though, as should everyone else that has had this issue which is certainly 'Safety Critical'  and should have had Skoda / VW taking action about with a Voluntary Recall as a minimum, but as time goes past it should be a RECALL with VOSA / DVLA providing Registered Keepers details to VW UK.

[rum4mo]

I'd think that it will be quite easy to work out why that fuel rail has ended up being bent, that garage is sensibly playing safe, understand that very high pressure fuel was in that fuel rail when that bolt head popped off so that left that end of the fuel rail unsupported with with high pressure fuel forcing it up and off the injector nearest that now broken bolt, and only supported at the next along bolt.

[J.R.]

Mmmm, I would reserve judgement till I had seen it.

 

Yes the fuel rail pressure is very high bit being hydraulic and not pneumatic pressure it would drop to zero once the tiniest amount of fuel had leaked.

 

Yes there will be a pump pushing through more fuel at a now lower pressure but the leak only has to be a couple of thou for all the fuel to escape, not enough for it to have taken the tubing beyond its elastic limit.

 

It could be that the garage are using the same logic, whether misguidedly or to bump up the bill we can only speculate.

 

A question when this job is done by VAG under warranty or recall do they replace the fuel rail?

 

And regarding the fasteners shearing, they must be made of Chinesium or Cheese to shear from the system pressure, there is no need for higher tensile bolts (although why not given the consequences of failure), just ones that have been correctly heat treated and/or not overtorqued.

[rum4mo]

So far it has been claimed that the bolts are being under torqued, also, in at least one market that is addressing this sort of proactively, the requirement parts wise includes a new fuel rail where a single bolt has lost its head - so going by that, I'd think that any/all VW Group dealership workshop will be replacing the fuel rail to every car that comes their way with this fault, other workshops working in isolation and just sorting out a car with this issue, will probably look at the fuel rail and if the welded on tabs for the bolts seem to still end up at the correct point when offered up to the cylinder head, just reuse it with a high probability that "all is good".

 

I think that VW Group struck lucky and no or very very few cars ended up needing repaired while under warranty - but that is just my gut feeling on this issue.

[Skinneroo]

8 hours ago, toot said:

I would tell VOSA though, as should everyone else that has had this issue which is certainly 'Safety Critical'  and should have had Skoda / VW taking action about with a Voluntary Recall as a minimum, but as time goes past it should be a RECALL with VOSA / DVLA providing Registered Keepers details to VW UK.

Done ✔️ 

[Skinneroo]

7 hours ago, J.R. said:

Mmmm, I would reserve judgement till I had seen it.

 

Yes the fuel rail pressure is very high bit being hydraulic and not pneumatic pressure it would drop to zero once the tiniest amount of fuel had leaked.

 

Yes there will be a pump pushing through more fuel at a now lower pressure but the leak only has to be a couple of thou for all the fuel to escape, not enough for it to have taken the tubing beyond its elastic limit.

 

It could be that the garage are using the same logic, whether misguidedly or to bump up the bill we can only speculate.

 

A question when this job is done by VAG under warranty or recall do they replace the fuel rail?

 

And regarding the fasteners shearing, they must be made of Chinesium or Cheese to shear from the system pressure, there is no need for higher tensile bolts (although why not given the consequences of failure), just ones that have been correctly heat treated and/or not overtorqued.

If over tightening was the issue then of course a higher tensile bolt would have prevented the failure. 

My gut feeling is that they haven't been tightened enough, causing the fixture to fret against the bolt head. 

I'm going to try and retrieve the original rail for inspection and to prove that nothing underhand is taking place ,I will be very surprised if so. 

[Breezy_Pete]

Under-tightening with consequent movement in the joint and either self-removal or fatigue failure of the screws makes the most sense.

[J.R.]

If an assembly line was for whatever reasons overtightening a fastener to where the induced tension plus the cyclic service load resulted in plastic deformation culminating in tensile failure the corrective measure would not be to increase the tensile strength of the fasteners used.

 

They would not be saying to the stress engineer (which I am) you should have specified a higher grade fastener.

 

I hope you will be able to retrieve the shank of the broken bolt as well for inspection, the failure mode will be plain to see to an experienced eye.

 

I did also say "although why not (replace with a higher grade fastener) given the consequences of failure"

[Skinneroo]

DVSA have baled, they say that it's not a safety issue 🙄 

[J.R.]

It does appear that there have been no reports of fires yet, in stark contrast to fuel leaks in previous decades with Kettering ignition systems with fat juicy sparks from the contact breaker points and rotor arm.

 

The best had to be the Essex V6 engine with the fuel pipe stub that ejected from the carburettor through heat expansion and then sprayed petrol over the distributor right beside it!

[Skinneroo]

£843 ouch!