It soon became apparent that this car wasn’t a great fan of keeping fuel in the pipes! The injector leak turned out to be a leaking o-ring. I replaced that, and the leak was solved. However, I’d introduced a misfire. It sounded like there was an air leak, but I’d be damned if I could find it so off I went looking into alternatives. In the end, someone on mx5nutz suggested spraying carb cleaner around the affected area. Sure enough, when spraying it at injector 3, the engine tried to stall.

After pulling the injector rail for what seemed like the millionth time, it became apparent. Somehow, tiny shards of plastic were sitting just underneath the hole where the injector seats, meaning it wouldn’t seal properly. I raided the missus’ shelf-o-crap and robbed some cotton buds to pluck the foreign objects out without accidentally knocking them into the inlet manifold. With the injectors reseated, the car drove fine once again. Just as well, because the mpg was shocking!

It wasn’t long before the next leak was sprung though, coming from the pipe after the fuel filter. For some reason it was plastic rather than rubber and had changed characteristics from the petrol. It was hard now rather than soft and so didn’t seal properly. Promptly replaced with new pipe and voila, no more leaks!