Ford 3.5L Eco Boost Seized Injector Repair

The 3.5L Ford Eco Boost engine has grown in popularity in recent years and is overall a decently reliable engine. People love the fuel efficiency, power and towing capabilities.

On the  Ford Transit Van layout however, there is a very common issue that has become a major headache for many owners.

The windshield cowling leaks, and water flows on to the engine beneath and causes a multitude of issues. The main issues being premature fuel injector failure and premature ignition coil failure. On top of that the water causes corrosion and can cause bolts to break and make repairs extremely difficult.

If you have not experienced these issues yet, we highly recommend you find a way to seal the cowling under your windshield before issues begin. We do this here at our shop, or if you google "Ford Transit water leaking on to engine" you will find people have made videos on how to fix this issue.

But if you do find yourself in a situation in which you have a bad fuel injector on a ford Transit, be prepared for what can be a brutal repair. More likely than not, the injector will be seized in to the head of your 3.5L Eco Boost.

The van specifically worked on in our scenario was a 2015 Ford Transit and what was supposed to be a simple injector change, turned out to need some creative solutions.

Once the intake is removed (a bolt broke on the intake as well due to corrosion), we went to remove the bad injectors. The injectors for Cylinders #2 & #3 would not come out and were seized in place. No injector puller could hold on tight enough to get them out either, not even the OE tool. At this point even the dealer will usually tell customers they have to replace the whole head due to the injector being so seized. While that may be the case at times, we found a couple of creative ways to get the seized injectors out that we wanted to share in case it can help you.

On injector #3 we were able to take a 7mm tap and thread it on to the top of the injector. Once solidly on there we had a piece of metal (actually a tire hook from our alignment machine) and ran it across over top of the injector. We then used a small puller to press against that metal and pull on the tap that was threaded to the injector. This worked out great and we managed to get injector #3 out with this method.

Injector #2 was even more seized in place, and when we attempted the same thing, the top post of the injector actually broke right off. We then took an 11mm bolt remover and hammered it on to the injector. Then using a breaker bar we were able to move it back and forth and get it turning in the head. Once turning we used a pry bar to pry up on the bolt remover socket and worked it out very slowly.

With all these methods you will have to be prepared to potentially still replace the head if something goes wrong. But in our case once we got them out we cleaned out the injector holes, installed new ones and everything worked perfectly.

A poor design on Ford's part, and hopefully you never have this issue. But if you do there is hope!

KENSINGTON AUTO
2201 Kensington Rd NW
Calgary, AB T2N 3R9
(587) 316-8106