The financial situation is aggravating, but I'm certain that isn't what you are asking.
Here goes:
Last Spring I smelled some burn odor so I pulled the injector cover and found gooey black stuff on the inside surface of the cover and brown deposit around the #3 injector. I immediately called Doktor A because he is the only one I considered for the repair. He had me check that the hold down bolts were not broken by putting reasonable torque on them, and had me test for leakage with a soap/water mixture. The cold engine looked like a Mr. Bubble commercial. I planned to get to him for repairs.
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I cleaned the inside of the cover with Orange Hand Cleaner, but then decided not to re-install it. My theory is that it traps the exhaust gases inside and acts like an oven to bake them on. Hence Black Death. I took tin foil and double wrapped all the injector connectors and some other components to protect them from getting gooed up and needing cleaning. I then tented the area that the injector cover fits over with a large piece of tin foil. The front of the tent is as tight as I can make it using tin foil tabs over fuel lines, etc. The back section is less tight. I figured that would allow fumes to escape and not bake everything on. This was all in anticipation of getting to Andy fairly quickly. A side benefit of the tinfoil tent is that the smells in the cabin went away.
One thing led to another and we couldn't schedule the work. Finally last Fall I figured we'd finally connect, but the I found I needed total hip replacement surgery $$$. So-o-o, I've been watching under the tinfoil tent. So far everything looks pretty good, fingers crossed. There is no build up of heavy gunk anywhere. I did a bubble test on the hot engine a bit ago and it seems the leak pretty much closes up when the engine is up to temperature?
I'm really not thrilled about putting this repair off, but it's not something I want tackle myself. I'm very concerned about problems during the procedure and the surface of the seal face. I may have 2 leaking injectors and at 213,000 miles if they are pulled should be replaced with new ones as long as out. I will say that based upon this one time experience, if you find injector leakage, as long as the hold down bolt is intact you don't need to panic and can wait a bit to schedule the repair with a mechanic of choice. Then again, I may be just pushing my luck.
Good luck. vic