If an IDI looses its prime, they can be a bear to get primed and restarted….
Let me share a personal experience to give you some encouragement….
A few years ago my oldest son saw an. 88 IDI listed for $800 non-running. He contacted the fella to see what was doing, and make arrangements to pick it up. He said there was some wiring under the hood that had melted, and he “fixed” it but was never able to get it running afterward…. He also told him that someone was on the way, so my son thanked him and that was the end of it…… or so we thought
Several days later, my son got a message from the fella, telling him…. It‘s still available and since you have to come ”so far” (it was maybe a hour away….lol) you can have it for $300…… I just want it gone…..
He got ahold of his buddy with a trailer and they went and got it (wasn’t the 1st IDI that had come home on a trailer for us) and they went and got it…. We discussed what it could be while he was on the way…. Money and title were exchanged, and my son asked if he could try a couple things to get it running, instead of having to winch it on the trailer. The fella then told him there were no batteries in it…….. bummer, so out came the winch line.
They got it home, and he and his buddy checked it over, put a couple batteries in it and gave it a try. It would turn over, but not start. It was getting late, so they quit for the night.
I went over after work the next day. I started going over it, and the wiring that melted, here is a surprise, was the wires for the glow plugs….. the wiring was in sad shape for them, and there was other non-factory wring in that area. So I carefully removed the junk wiring, including the feed for the glow plugs, reconnected the batteries (they had unhooked them the day before, just in case) and let is sit there with power for a bit and just watched. No magic smoke from anywhere….. so next we tried to start it.
I set a timer for 30 seconds, and the two of us started working to get it running. My son’s job (he was mid 20’s by this point and this was his 3rd or 4th IDI) was to run the key, and I was older the hood running the throttle and wielding the can of start ya *******. I started the timer, sold him to crank, and I healed the throttle wide open and started carefully spritzing the ether. When the time counted to zero, we stopped, and I reset it for 2 minutes, because patience is much easier than changing a starter, and we waited. At the end of 2 minutes, reset for 30, and started the process over again. I think it took a total of 5 or 6 sets of 30/2 cycles, but it eventually primed and fired up. We gave it a good once over, checked all the vitals,made sure the brakes worked and the clutch didn’t slip, and it was placed in service as his daily driver.
The wiring was repaired and he glow plugs were put back in service and he had a good truck after that. The body was beat, and a few different colors (he eventually painted it Ford Blue with a roller and a brush, which was a HUGE improvement from what it was) but the drive train was good. (Kinda wish he would have kept it, looking back)
But, the best part of this story, later in the week that he brought it home, he contacted the fella he got it from, and asked if the “other” (I don’t remember which one it was on) tank worked. He said he didn’t know, he never tried to use it, and why are you even worried about it. My son told him because he had been driving it all week and wanted to check before he tried to use it and had any problems. The fella was shocked, he said he figured that truck would never run again……..
So don’t give up……. Just because something will never run again….. doesn’t mean anything…..