Injector Tip Fell Off - HELP!

[Steve Sears]

Hello fellow listers,
Patient: 1987 5000CD Turbo Quattro (almost 300k kms on the clock)
Problem (as if there's only one, but anyway):
Last Thursday, I went about the long overdue injector replacement.  Got the
first four injectors no problem, the last one, however, came out with little
effort, however, when I removed it, the metal "tip" was gone.  The tip was
fairly dirty, but the scrape marks of the tip could be seen.  After cursing
a lot - I proceeded to try to extract the tip which I could not see.
Removed all the spark plugs (all a nice tan colour, with the exception of
the cylinder in question, which was black), rotated the engine by hand,
opened the intake valve and tried to blow the tip into the cylinder with
compressed air.  No dice.  Spent about 2 hours trying this, still didn't see
the tip.  what I did see, however, was that:
- The spark plug for the cylinder was black
- The spark plug hole had been "fixed" with an insert, it couldn't thread
all the way into the head and kept it about 3-5mm higher than the other
plugs.
- The top of the piston, when viewed from the spark plug hole, was oily and
coated with carbon
- I thought I could make out "nick marks" in the crown.
As I surmised that the tip probably fell off and got munched long ago, I
reassembled the car and fired it up.  When it caught, it jumped immediately
to about 3000 rpm and stayed, with a noticable tick from the engine
(however, it used to tick anyway when starting up, like most do).  Panicked,
I shut it off and towed it to the local dealer (flame suit on).
The tech pulled the injector and insert, and couldn't find the tip.  Not in
the intake, nor against/in the valve.  He told me he's worried about it
passing through and munching the turbo.  I think it's already passed though
(by some grace from above) long ago due to the damage to the cylinder.
Anybody concur?
Thanks,
Steve Sears
1987 5kTQ
1980 5k
1962 and '64 Auto Union DKW Junior deLuxes
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