Bleeding MF253 Problem

[mauricem]

Changed the fuel filter on the 253 the other week and havent had it going since! (did the water pump at the same time but thats another story) If you look at the image Ive bled it at all the points shown at the filter and the pump but have had problems getting a spanner onto the injector nuts.

Firstly is it the large nut that the arrow is pointing to that I need to back off? None of my spanners will get in their so I guess I need a flare spanner? 17mm is close but this would be AF wouldnt it 20 11/16" would be the one?

Hopefully bleeding one pot will do it as the one closest to the driver (is that 1 or 3 cyl?) looks impossible to access without removing the fuel tank. ANy ideas if I should be able to get a wrench in there past all the spaghetti?

You might notice in the pic a fair amount of oil around #2 injector seat, would this be from the rocker cover leaking down or the injector itself, should I be concerned? There is no oil usage or signs of leakage on the shed floor.

Tractor has been running well and usually starts immediately, Tank is full of fresh fuel. The only odd thing was when I replaced the MF fuel filter with a Donaldson the correct orientation going on the original, was with the writing (Donaldson) upside down. I tried the other way first but had no chance of sealing it.

Thanks for any help, Ive bled plenty of diesels before but never with such bad access.

 

[shona13]

g.Day mauricem.
Make sure that ALL OF THE AIR Has been bled out of the two small bleed screws and then undo any one of the injector pipes at the INJECTOR PUMP END ,you may have to bleed one till you see diesel drip out then tighten and do another easy one to get to ,but it will start.
Charge the battery the night before ,this will give you a good battery to start with .
Happy Days .
Hutch.

 

[jlsmith]

Agree with shona13. Just keep bleeding at the injectors until you get it to start. A small sniff of starter fluid my help also.
Jeremy

 

[tbill45]

Where are the two small bleed screws?

 

[shona13]

G'day tbill 45 .
They are the ones on the bottom left photograph,undo the bottom one first ,pump till all the air is out then tighten up and do the same with the top one.
Happy days.
Hutch.

 

[Hirascomo]

View attachment 274260

Hello forum,
Mauricem, it has been a long time since you posted the issue with your 253, but I read your post and I think we have the same tractor. Everything that you experienced is exactly where I am tonight, I am considering removing the tank to gain access to the injectors. My 253 has the oily #2 injector too. I too have bled everything just as you did, except for the injectors themselves due to not being able to get a wrench onto them. I will try the other suggestion of trying to bleed the injector lines from the pump side tomorrow.

But if you still receive comments on this post, could you please let me know what you did to get your tractor running again ? I will remove the tank if I have to, but this too looks to be difficult due to not being able to access all of the mounting bolts. Any advice will be appreciated.

 

[mauricem]

Hi Hirascomo,
got it going that time by cranking while having BOTH the bleed screws open at the same time... but the next time I changed he fuel filter that didnt work, I had to crack the larger nut on the outlet side of the fuel pump to get it firing. Hope this helps. If you need pics let me know and I can get some later

BTW you wouldnt have an operators manual would you??

 

[Hirascomo]

Hello Mauricem,

Thanks for your reply and your tips. Before I received your reply, I wound up altering a metric combination wrench which allowed me to loosen the nuts on the fuel lines at the injectors. Hopefully you will never have to bleed your 253 again, but in case if you do, I am sending a pic of what I did. It made the bleeding about a 15 minute job. Basically, I cut a slot into the box end of a 17mm combination wrench so that the box end could slip over the fuel line, then I cut off the open end side of the wrench so that I could get a small stroke to loosen the nuts since there was very little space to move the wrench.

I have had a number of diesel tractors over the years and wound up bleeding all of them for one reason or another, but this MF253 was the most difficult to bleed due to the inability to access the injectors without completely disassembling everything above the engine. After quite a bit of aggravation and enough cuss words that I even got tired of hearing them myself, I came up with this wrench that made the job easy.

As far as the manual, sorry, I do not. However, if I get one, I will contact you.

Happy Trails