Flooded gas tank in Z920A

[MikeA57]

Last Wednesday my wife offered to cut the back yard while I took our son to football practice. I told her that she would have to add gas to the mower before mowing and that when she finished she could just park the mower on a concrete pad I have behind our fence and I would clean it off the next evening and put it away. Never thought about the possibility of rain...

Thursday morning we awoke to VERY heavy rains occurring across Western TN. Depending on where you were around town, there was between 4-9 inches of rain in a 2 hour period. ( http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/9509...ity-tennessee/) We live in the area that got 9" of rain. Of course, my John Deere Z920A sat out in that deluge. I'm guessing that when she put the top on the gas tank she didn't get it on straight and it vibrated off sometime during mowing. I tried starting the mower before I even realized that the gas tank top was off, but the battery was dead too and it never even turned over, (which is a good thing I'm thinking). So now, I've got who knows how much water in my gas tank. Since it didn't even try to start I don't think any of the tainted fuel got sucked into the fuel pump.

I know the first thing is to pump the diluted gas out of the tank, charge the battery and refill with good gas and a healthy dose of Seafoam.

Is there anything else I need to do or check? What's my next move? This mower has the 26 hp air cooled Kawasaki on it.

What a mess...

Thanks,

Mike

 

[beenthere]

If you drain the tank good, and then remove the fuel line to the carb, and put some fresh fuel in the tank and pump that through the system to the carb. Then change the fuel filter and put the fuel line back on the carb and see if it will start. Should have all the water out by then.

Might be easiest to just remove the fuel tank and turn it over to get it cleaned out.. as removing all the water using the fuel pickup tube might not do the trick. Looks to be no drain in the bottom of that tank, according to part diagram in jdparts.com.

 

[mfreund]

Refill the tank with that dreaded ethanol gas. It will absorb any residual water and carry it through the fuel system and turn to steam out of exhaust.

 

[MikeA57]

Might be easiest to just remove the fuel tank and turn it over to get it cleaned out.. as removing all the water using the fuel pickup tube might not do the trick. Looks to be no drain in the bottom of that tank, according to part diagram in jdparts.com.

Refill the tank with that dreaded ethanol gas. It will absorb any residual water and carry it through the fuel system and turn to steam out of exhaust.

Both good points. I also noticed that there was no drain in the tank when I looked at it yesterday afternoon. And one thing I've been doing is running non-ethanol in the mower but maybe this one time...

I also took the battery out and put it on charge but it wasn't discharged. (Didn't know why it would be as it had only sat there a couple of days) So I've also got to figure out why it just went "click" when I tried to start it. Wonder if with that amount of rain the starter got wet and just needs to dry out? There isn't any kind of moisture sensor in the fuel system is there?

 

[beenthere]

How deep was the water that this tractor was setting in, for a brief time?

 

[mfreund]

How deep was the water that this tractor was setting in, for a brief time?

Uh, it was out in a 9 inch rain storm. Never in water.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I think I would remove the tank and drain all the water out unless I could get the tank completely dry by siphoning out the fuel, then removing the fuel line to let the rest drain. Maybe put some rags on a stick and sop up anything that remains.

Likely also is that you got a lot of grass clippings in the tank from mowing, so those need to be flushed out also.

 

[beenthere]

Ok
So the "click" is not from setting in water. Wanted to confirm that (OP didn't).

I'd first try to get this machine good and dried out.
Then if it still goes "click", I'd bypass the battery, with a new one or one from another source.

Next, start tracking down problems from there.

 

[MikeA57]

Ok
So the "click" is not from setting in water. Wanted to confirm that (OP didn't).

I'd first try to get this machine good and dried out.
Then if it still goes "click", I'd bypass the battery, with a new one or one from another source.

Next, start tracking down problems from there.

I did get the tank off yesterday and carried it around to the workshop area. It was pretty shook up by then. I got a pint mason jar and poured some fuel in it from the fuel line that extends into the tank and is attached to the fitting outside the tank. I let that settle and very surprisingly there was no separation of water/fuel. I'm still going to dump it though, just to be safe. From looking in the tank as far as I can see or in what I poured into the jar there doesn't appear to be any grass in the tank. This afternoon I plan on refilling the tank and installing a new filter the fuel line. Then I'll start trying to get it cranked.

 

[rrrkkk]

Take the spark plug out and try to crank it.