Our DAF was built in 1990, so it came with the Lucas CAV injector. Later versions of the DAF (so called Euro-1 and Euro-2) came with a Bosch VE Injector, which is significantly more superior. In the US, they only fitted the CAV to farm vehicles, with puts its abilities in context. As well as being a better fuel injector, over the years a number of upgrades have been invented that improve on its performance and fuel efficiency.
By far the easiest way of procuring the injector is to find a donor engine and doing a straight swap of all the necessary parts. This is what a couple of DAF owners have done and it was probably the right decision. In hindsight this is what we should have done, but I had never worked on an engine before and the thought of finding and buying a reliable engine was too daunting.
So purchased the parts separately, which was still challenging. I didn’t find a list of what to buy, so kept discovering more and more pieces. In the end I brought:
- Reconditioned Bosch VE Injector from Pensacola Diesel
- Set of six new injector lines, that supply the engine with fuel from the injector, from ebay
- Supply lines, that supply the fuel from the fuel filter, from FindItParts
- An old mounting bracket (Cummins part 3905313), from ebay
Removing the CAV Injector is one of the most annoying jobs on the truck. It’s only attached by three bolts, one of which is hidden behind the compressor. You can either remove the compressor or curse and swear your way through the process of removing it with a variety of tools and a mirror. I found a combination of a crowfoot wrench, a wobble head driver and lots of patience worked. But the job took me 2-3 hours of the course of a week and as I purchased and tried different tools!
Fortunately, the installation was a lot easier, with the compressor removed it’s a lot easier to access all the screws!