Bleeding Fuel Systems

[Bird]

<font color=blue>Am I going to need to bleed the system.</font color=blue>

Probably not, but as has been stated, your Operator's Manual should tell you. It was not required on by '99 B2710 and since the L48 is a newer model, I doubt it's required on that either. However, my '95 B7100 manual did have instructions for bleeding it, and I had to do it twice in the time I had it. The first time was here in the shop building at the house when I got water in the fuel, and like Cowboydoc, I didn't have a tubing wrench (which is without a doubt the best wrench for the job), but I did have open end metric wrenches that fit. The second time was in a hayfield nearly 10 miles from home when it ran out of fuel (no fuel gauge and a neighbor was using it to pull a hayrake while I was doing the baling with his bigger tractor), and all I had was an adjustable (Crescent) wrench. It still didn't take 10 minutes and didn't damage anything.

 

[DavidInNH]

What - read the manual?

Good idea, I'll take a look tonight.

 

[DavidInNH]

Thanks - now that you mention it, another thread mentioned using a "full body condom" for changing the filter. Maybe they didn't have a shut-off valve (or didn't see it).

-david

 

[DavidInNH]

Hmm - when I was shopping for tractors, the JD salesman made a big deal about them being direct-injected vs the Kubota system. According to him, there were all sorts of wonderful benefits - you didn't have to bleed the system after running out of fuel and they started easier than K's did in the cold. I haven't had any problem with cold starts on my machine nor have I seen any discussion of either of these issues here. I wonder if his information was just way out of date.

-david

 

[Bird]

David, to change the fuel filter on either of my Kubotas, the shut-off valve at the filter worked, and I didn't have to bleed lines; just had to loosen one 10mm bolt to let the fuel filter refill on the B7100 and not even that on the B2710. And as far as direct injection vs. indirect injection, that has been discussed at some length in the past on the forum and quite frankly, I don't know enough to even have an opinion as to which is best. Of course, I never used my tractors in subfreezing weather, and I never had any starting problem as long as I had fuel in the tank (without water)./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[ns_in_tex]

Does anyone know if this is good or bad? Some years ago I ran my larger tractor out of fuel while I was closer to the dealer than home. Had never bled the fuel system on this tractor. Added fuel & it would not start. Dealer sent a tech over, he pulled a little plug in the intake manifold, squirted in some WD40 & told me to crank. It started & he kept squirting until it ran on its on. Never had occasion to try it since. It seemed awful simple.

 

[RoyJackson]

"Does anyone know if this is good or bad?"

Is that tractor still running? Then it must not have been bad.

I don't know the composition of WD-40, but it is a petroleum distillate (as is diesel fuel). Since it sprays in (therefore is atomized), it probably got the engine started enough to pull the fuel into the combustion chamber. Not an optimal way to do this, but for a road fix, seems like it worked pretty good!

I guess you could do this with ether too, but ether is a big No-No!!!

 

[Turfman]

Last time I checked the propellent on WD 40 was propane. I have used it to start mowers, but I'll be darned if I'd use it to start my expensive diesel tractor. I fear that using propane as a temporary fuel might do it in.

Turfman

 

[Ozarker]

It's bad......................... I would immediately start kicking a "techs" a$$ if he pulled that shade tree crap on my equipment because he was too lazy to bleed it correctly.

He used the wd40 as fuel until the fuel lines self bled. But he ran the risk of doing serious damage to your engine. A diesel engine is compression fired and the fuel is injected into the cylinder at a precise time in the compression stroke. By spraying WD 40 in he was introducing a fuel/air mixture at the beginning of the compression stroke that was probably igniting too soon. I suspect the engine was running very rough and knocking while he was spraying.

 

[bgott]

The hot rod diesel boys are using propane injection as a performance enhancer. I hear what you're saying about pre-ignition, I'm kind of curious on how they are doing it and not grenading the engine. I've been known to use WD40 to start engines. I figure it's a little easier on the engine than ether. When I was younger every diesel powered vehicle you came in contact with had three or four empty ether cans in 'em. They never had a full one when you needed it.