KZTE injector life?

[Polarbear2008]

A quick question for all the clever diesel heads on the forum.

What is the life of the injectors/tips on the (in)famous Kzte?

Mine has done around 265k and only smokes a little on cold startup.

Would it be an idea to replace the glow plugs and pull the injectors to have the tips inspected?

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[Thabogrobler]

Yes and no.

I had my Kz's injectors first reconned at over 200 000km and sold it with the second set at 433 000km. Might be a good idea to have the spray pattern tested?

You will know when a glowplug has gone. It will struggle to start in the morning. Never changed mine in 13 years/ 433 000km.

[Polarbear2008]

Thabogrobler I guess the injectors come out for that test right? Wonder what the cost is for such a job....

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[louis fourie]

Thabogrobler I guess the injectors come out for that test right? Wonder what the cost is for such a job....

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About R500, but Northern Diesel in Struben Street recons for more or less R2000

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[Mars]

The problem with injectors as they get older is that they eventually will start to leak causing a concentration of diesel on one spot on the piston crown. This spot overheats and starts melting the piston and you end up with a hole in the piston. It is therefore a good idea to have the injectors tested and refurbished if necessary. On my as well as on my brothers D4D only one injector was going out of spec after 270 000 ks. On both vehicles three of the injectors were still perfect. My brother has not done his injectors yet as he is on 270 000 now but I replaced mine on about 280 000 ks with new ones and although I cannot see a difference in fuel consumption I can definitely state that the engine is noticeable smoother with the new injectors.

[Polarbear2008]

Yes and no.

I had my Kz's injectors first reconned at over 200 000km and sold it with the second set at 433 000km. Might be a good idea to have the spray pattern tested?

You will know when a glowplug has gone. It will struggle to start in the morning. Never changed mine in 13 years/ 433 000km.

Thabogrobler what made you recon the injectors? Was the truck lazy or did it smoke? Or did you just have a gut feeling and had them tested?


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[Mud Dog]

Just out of interest - more for my own morbid curiosity, but thinking it might be good to share, lets just do a rough (very rough) calculation.

Let's say for the purpose of the exercise that at 3000rpm in top gear your vehicle will be doing somewhere around the 100kmph mark. So, maintaining that speed, in 60min you would have travelled roughly 100km and there would have been 3000 x 60 revolutions of the motor's crankshaft, which = 180,000 revolutions. That figure would hold true irrespective of your speed since we are actually working with distance (as long as you are in top gear). There are 2 revolutions of the crank per cycle in a 4 stroke motor so for each 100km's in the above example there would have been roughly 180,000 x ½ = 90,000 cycles and each injector fires once per cycle. So in a thousand km the injectors would have fired roughly 900,000 times. Over a lifespan of 200,000 km's (as given in the above posts), the injectors would have fired roughly 180,000,000 times.

It's amazing to consider that they can achieve this figure of 180 million pulses without missing a beat!

Take into consideration that this very rough calculation hasn't taken into account the city driving where you would be doing far more rpm per kilometre as you work your way up through the gears before getting into top gear, nor the number of times where traffic is moving too slow to be able to utilise top gear, nor the number of revolutions while you stand idling at traffic stops. Of course there are the relatively few times where you decelerate that the injectors stop pulsing as you slow down against compression, but that's almost insignificant in the overall scenario and the actual number of pulses will be a fair percentage more than the 180 million in the calculation above.

Then of course diesel injectors work at much higher pressures and a lot harder than their petrol cousins, so to get as much as 200,000 km's out of them is actually nothing short of spectacular and they can be retired with grateful satisfaction.

[Thabogrobler]

Yes and no.

I had my Kz's injectors first reconned at over 200 000km and sold it with the second set at 433 000km. Might be a good idea to have the spray pattern tested?

You will know when a glowplug has gone. It will struggle to start in the morning. Never changed mine in 13 years/ 433 000km.

Thabogrobler what made you recon the injectors? Was the truck lazy or did it smoke? Or did you just have a gut feeling and had them tested?


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No issues. Since it is recommended at 100 000km, I guess at 200 000km I just had it replaced without questions.

It was a at least 8 years ago but was around the R2000 mark for the complete set.

[Polarbear2008]

Thanks Thabo.

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[Mars]

Interesting maths Andy and probably very conservative like you said. My bakkie did 280 000 ks before I replaced the injectors. That is 90% town driving. At that stage one injector was out of spec. One was in-spec but on the low side and two were on factory spec!!!!! That must be at well over 200 million pulses.

[Polarbear2008]

Mars are these d4d injectors you are referring to? Mine is still old school ones (before common rail injection).

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[Mars]

Yes I am referring to the common rail injectors. That does not take anything away from the number of injection cycles they will have gone through. Nor the fact that with age and consequent wear they start leaking. I am talking about expensive experience on an Isuzu 2.5 that uses mechanical injection.

I was told that the recon of the KZTe injectors works well whilst the recon of D4D injectors is not that successful although it could have been the guy at Northern Diesel who may have been overly cautious as he does a lot of work for a friend of mine who recommended him. By the same token he was happy to recon the Bosch injectors on my wife's Kia and they did a great job!

If you are looking at about R2000 (probably quite a bit more now) for the recon of a set of injectors then that would be money very well spent.

[pietpetoors]

Very interresting, just want to comment on Thabo's observation

You will know when a glowplug has gone. It will struggle to start in the morning.

My Auris was smoking excessively when starting cold, but it started immediately without any hassle.
I changed the glow plugs just for the fun of it (was only R220.00 each at Autozone)

Excessive Smoke gone on cold start up.

I think what might have happened is that maybe only one glo plug was not heating as hot as it should. So maybe the 3 correct ones let engine start immediately and the cool one caused the smoke.

[Polarbear2008]

Yes I am referring to the common rail injectors. That does not take anything away from the number of injection cycles they will have gone through. Nor the fact that with age and consequent wear they start leaking. I am talking about expensive experience on an Isuzu 2.5 that uses mechanical injection.

I was told that the recon of the KZTe injectors works well whilst the recon of D4D injectors is not that successful although it could have been the guy at Northern Diesel who may have been overly cautious as he does a lot of work for a friend of mine who recommended him. By the same token he was happy to recon the Bosch injectors on my wife's Kia and they did a great job!

If you are looking at about R2000 (probably quite a bit more now) for the recon of a set of injectors then that would be money very well spent.

Thank you.

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