Did you check out United on one of the most recent episodes of Wheeler Dealers?
For two decades, Wheeler Dealers has been essential television viewing for petrolheads, taking classic cars that have seen better days and giving them a new lease of life. All for a tasty profit at the end!
Resident presenters, Mike Brewer and Marc Priestley (Elvis), called upon United to help them with their latest restoration project, a 1990 Volvo 240 Torslanda. Sharing its name with the factory it was manufactured in, this cavernous Swedish estate is a rare, limited-edition model that capped off nearly two decades of ‘200 Series’ production.
Alongside problems with rust, clutch and a cracked dashboard, the 240 suffered from laboured performance when driven in higher gears. Elvis spotted an issue with one of the fuel injectors and set his sights on our Shropshire workshop for some expertise!
“Based in Shrewsbury and family run, United have all the equipment I would need to turn the injectors around” Mike told viewers while on his way to show us his faulty injectors.
Our Managing Director, Keith, welcomed both Mike and the challenge of fixing his fuel injector with open arms. “We can put it on the machine, check the spray angle, atomisation, the whole lot.”
Immediately Keith noticed something was wrong. One of the fuel injectors was contaminated, preventing the needle from closing, causing petrol to leak into the bore into the engine. A less-than-ideal issue to have, but at least the team now knew where the lack of power was coming from. Using our state-of-the-art equipment, we started testing the injector’s spray angle by simulating how each fuel injector would work in the engine. To do this, we use specialist fluid that can replicate the atomisation, since standard petrol is too volatile to use while testing.
An injector’s flow rate is just as important as its spray angle. Over-fuelling can be incredibly harmful to the engine if it isn’t identified and addressed soon enough, causing spluttering, rough starting and overall bad performance. We found that the Volvo’s faulty injector was letting twice as much petrol into the engine compared to a working injector.
For such a special motor, we couldn’t take any chances with our repair. We cleared any debris from the injectors using our ultrasonic cleaning equipment. Cleaning and purging the injectors ensures an even flow of petrol into the engine when fitted back in, keeping your engine running smooth and giving it that extra bit of poke on the road.
We didn’t want to send Mike and the team back without the full United experience. So, before they went back to the workshop, we tested the injectors one last time after replacing all the old seals and filters. All injectors had the same flow rate and were now ready to go back in the Torslanda, preparing it for many more miles on the road.
We had a blast recording with the Wheeler Dealers team and the team would be delighted to fix more fuel injectors for any of their upcoming projects!
You can watch us on Season 18, Episode 7 of Wheeler Dealers on Discovery+, via catch up or Amazon Prime Video. Let us know what you think about the episode!
