Injector help needed, advice and etc... and maybe some therapy too.

[annieneff]

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
I just got back from a long road trip. The van (1.9 TD, transplant) smoked a little at startup before the trip but ran fine. On the trip the smoke got worse and worse. By the end it barely idled and smoked at idle, and ran very poorly. White smoke and prolific, if you were curious. I only limped home the last 10 or 15 miles with it really running poorly like this.
When I dug into it I noticed some weeping from the injectors and when I sprayed them with soap 2 of them bubbled. I pulled them expecting to replace the crush washers when I found that in one of them the "seat" (don't know what else to call it), under the washer was all messed up. It looks like someone took a chisel to it and hacked at the bottom. If you look really close in the pictures there is a small hole in the sidewall as well, towards where the glow plug should be. There was also a lot of carbon buildup in the injector hole and on the injector, and on the crush washer. All around sucky thing to find pulling the injector out. In the pictures I took two pictures of the bad one from different angles and one picture of a good one. Three all looked the same; a little dirty but otherwise fine, the one really looked like hell.
So, I have 2 questions... 1. Do I need a new head? I'm having a hard time imagining getting new washers and putting it all back together and having it work, at all. Is there any fix for this? which leads me to my second question...
2. What in the world caused this? All the injectors came out with the same amount of torque. None of the threads were dorked or otherwise molested. I have a Giles Superpump... maybe things got too hot without me knowing it and melted the injector hole? (I have a properly placed and installed EGT gauge, and an intercooler, and I was driving the Oregon coast 101... it never got above 75 degrees outside and my EGT temps never came close to spiking or getting near the danger zone). I have a hard time imagining how the injector hole would melt, of all things.
Since I've been home I've checked the timing, it's spot on.
If pictures of anything else (the injectors?) would help let me know and I'll post those. Otherwise, anything you can offer advice wise as to a possible fix, and possible cause will be so, so welcome. Thanks!
Andrew

[burn_your_money]

Mark that injector and bring them in to have them pop tested.

How's your turbo?

[annieneff]

Turbo sounds okay. It's original Ko3 set to max 14 lbs and only goes there when I hit it (rarely). Why ask about the turbo (forgive my ignorance)?
Can any shop do a pop test? No need to mark which injector it is... All the others look great and it looks like a carbonized mummy.

[burn_your_money]

Your symptoms also sound similar to a turbo dumping oil out the hot side. With a K03 in a van I would expect you to be almost always hitting 15psi. Get the injectors straightened out before you go looking into the turbo though, that one injector sounds highly suspect.

You'll need to mark it if you bring it in, as the shop will likely clean the injectors before testing. Call ahead to see if they can test them. You'll need to bring them to a fuel injection shop, a regular garage is highly unlikely to have the equipment. Some shops won't charge, some will charge around $10 an injector. Call around if there are some shops in the area.

[libbydiesel]

It's hard to tell from the pics exactly how bad it is, but I've repaired several injector seats by lapping them with valve grinding paste.  I made a tool by fastening a heat shield to a piece of allthread with a nut on either side of the shield.  I added a piece of hose to the other end to act as a handle and save my hand from the thread.  Clean it well after.  On one I chucked it in a drill instead of doing it by hand.  That worked much quicker but risks getting valve grinding paste into the cylinder.

[ORCoaster]

I wonder if there wasn't something under the heat shield the last time it was put together and the vibrations of the injector didn't just chisel it around.  Lap it out as suggested I think it will be fine.

[annieneff]

I'll lap it, and have the injectors pop tested as suggested. Good ideas, thank you. I'm thinking if I can get a piece of cotton in there I can minimize the risk of debris going into my cylinder. I'd thought of trying to lap it too, but wasn't sure it was advisable, and had limited ideas for technique. Glad to know I was on the right track.
Burn: if it was the turbo (makes some sense to suspect it given that it's original, has never been rebuilt, and has recently had a lot more asked of it) if the turbo was dumping oil out the hot side, how could I tell? The turbo is pretty accessible in the van, and all the oil and air hoses are really easy to get to. Where would I start looking if I wanted to check?
Should know later today if the injectors are all good, found a shop nearby to test them. Thanks again for the ideas and suggestions.