fuel? issues

[jwalterus]

truck's been running fine, ran fine all day until this evening, left it idling about 10 minutes on a slight side slant, came out, engine's not running!

took a while to start, full throttle to get it going, now it's sorta acting like there's air in the lines (cruising along and it starts to haul ass), and it died a couple times when I was stopped at a light or stop sign, again hard to start, had to use full throttle

picking up a Microguard fuel filter tomorrow (Oreilly's house name brand, half the price of WIX or Motorcraft, same warranty) I figure I'll try it just to see if it's the problem, also going to bleed the lines, mechanical lift pump, so do I just crank it without fuel hooked up to bleed them?

I don't really see how I could have gotten air into the lines though, I have 3/4 in the tank it was on, so I don't see it getting it there, maybe the fuel filter is the whole problem?

any ideas other than this??


edit: should mention I have been running MMO and PS in the tanks, maybe that cleaned all the crud off them and into the filter? it was an old farm truck

 

[FordGuy100]

How much fuel in the other tank?

I have had some times where my fuel selector valve wont actually switch tanks but it will show I did (fuel gauge will go from reading the empty tank to the full tank I'm switching to) and then it will suck air.

 

[jwalterus]

just under 1/4 tank in the other one

I've got 2 fuel gauges I am going to hook up, that way I can read both at the same time, maybe set it up with a separate switched electric fuel pump for each prior to the lift pump? that would eliminate ever having that problem

 

[starmilt]

You don't want an electric pump running with the manual one too.

 

[FordGuy100]

Yup I heard if you run an electric fuel pump with the standard lift pump it will push fuel into the crank case.

 

[jwalterus]

gotcha, bypass the mech pump if I do the dual pump install

 

[Jake S.]

I had a holley red to "fix" my return line issues. I finally got a kit, and the holley quit. Took it out and the holley must have been bad for a while. Thought I was running out of fuel all the time. In the cold the diesel is thicker and my holley couldn't flow enough volume. I would try a filter first, then check the pressure/volume output after the filter to see if the lift pump is on its way out. The electric is nice, don't get me wrong, but I have had better luck w/o it.

 

[jwalterus]

so I finally found my large adjustable oil filter wrench last night, and got the fuel filter changed and the injector lines bled

the PO must have been the incredible hulk, the wrench bent the very top of the filter where it screws on by the time I got the thing off, the water separator bowl was no better...

rinsed out the water bowl with diesel, and again, and again..... that thing had all sorts of little pieces of crap in it, the filter was noticably dirty

filled the fuel filter and installed it, truck fired right up cold (haven't had it plugged in for 2 days), cracked each injector line a little and waited a few seconds until it was dripping/spraying fuel and tightened it back up

am I missing something as far as bleeding any air out of the system, or am I ok now?

on a good note, all my injectors are good it seems, noticeably ran like crap while each was cracked open....

 

[Jake S.]

I had to spear my filter with a screwdriver three times to get it off after I bought the truck. geez. The system is supposedly a self priming/purging system. A hose runs from the filter head to the return system to purge air out before going to the ip. I think you should be good if you are running smooth.

 

[jwalterus]

sounds like I'm good then, thanks for the info

on another note, I now have a 5 gallon can of diesel to clean parts with, asked the wife to pick some up yesterday

she came home and said "I got the cheap stuff, I hope that's ok...."

guess what color it is?

 

[Jake S.]

The color of ATF mixed in with your diesel?

 

[jwalterus]

ding ding ding! we have a winner!!!

in her defense, she doesn't have a clue about any vehicle

still leaves me with 5 gallons of unuseable fuel

 

[pybyr]

ding ding ding! we have a winner!!!

in her defense, she doesn't have a clue about any vehicle

still leaves me with 5 gallons of unuseable fuel

Do you or anyone you know have an oil burning boiler or furnace for a heating system? That red diesel should mix and burn fine with #2 heating oil- they're, for all practical purposes, the same.

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

filled the fuel filter and installed it, truck fired right up cold (haven't had it plugged in for 2 days), cracked each injector line a little and waited a few seconds until it was dripping/spraying fuel and tightened it back up

am I missing something as far as bleeding any air out of the system, or am I ok now?

Glad you got it running; now you just need to find out why it quit.



I put this here just so others will know :

On ANY diesel system, if the engine fires and is running, there is ABSOLUTELY NO BENEFIT gained from "cracking" injector-lines.

There is no need to "bleed" the lines if the engine will start.

Further, the IDI system CAN and WILL self-bleed, so no need at all to manually bleed anything on an IDI = forget that tempting Schraeder Valve is even on there (it is for checking fuel-pressure).


A running diesel engine will not so much as hiccup if a little bit of air happens to pass through the system.

What WILL cause problems is a LARGE amount of air with NO FUEL, thus it momentarily runs out of fuel; and, enough air will cause the lift-pump to lose it's prime.

 

[Goose_ss4]

first off once you introduce air to these fuel systems it is very hard to get them out. some ways to get it out is by cracking open a couple of fuel lines, and watch the bubbles out. or my personal favorite go on a govenor running, and wine the **** out of it to expel any remaining air. might not get all of the air out, but it really helped my rig. also by adding a new fuel filter is just another way for air to get it. on the fuel filter assembly there is a shrader valve that you can press to let the air as well.