Tomorrow should finish me up. I got my grill, grill trim, lower guard and 8N bumper installed. Also got the intake, oil bath air cleaner, and exhaust stack mounted. Made up 2 long bolts for my battery hold down and got the battery in.
Bought fuel and antifreeze and filled up the fuel tank and as much antifreeze/mix as it would hold cold. readjusted my clutch freeplay but the peddle height was about right. Began bleeding my fuel system and whoa, I had a bad leak somewhere around my new fuel filter. Come to find out the top rubber gasket ring was not sealing to the filter, so I RTV the rubber to the filter. That cured that.
I could not find a bleed screw on the pump, but I cracked the input line and was good to there. The injector lines were still all loose, so I tried cranking the engine to see if I could bleed those. Well, although I had the battery hooked up to a China Freight trickle charger all this time, it was very weak and I had to get my big battery charger hooked up. After some time, the lines all show fuel dribbling out so I tightened them all down. I think my battery is really too small for a diesel. Moment of truth. After some more charging time, I tried cranking her up. Even the heaters did not let her fire up. I went to get my starter fluid, but I was out. Getting dark and cold, but I went to the parts store for some Starter fluid anyway. I was determined to get this to fire or blow something up trying tonight. First shot of starter fluid did not do anything. Tried another shot and I could hear an awful banging noise. I wasn't sure if it was starter fluid exploding or metal banging, but she eventually fired and sputtered to life belching blue smoke. Even with the open ends of my carport cover it was choking me sitting high up on the tractor. She wasn't exactly purring, but eventually she smoothed out to a steady rattle knocking as diesels are prone to do I suppose. My oil pressure was steady at 40 lbs. at idle. I never did race the engine much because I was waiting for it to warm up first, so I could top of the radiator fluid. I guess I'm too impatient because it barely began to move the temp gauge when I noticed a small puddle of oil forming on my right. I was not sure at first where this was from, so I shut it down to do a walk around. Turns out I was getting some splash from the rear hydraulic pump drive gear. It was cold and dark, so I stopped while I was ahead.
Tomorrow I need to install my hydraulic pump and top off my radiator. I ordered a pressure gauge from eBay ($10) and I thought I would mount it permanently on my hydraulic pump. I was reading in my book that you can screw a gauge into the bleed screw to test the release valve and thought, why not just mount a gauge there permanently if they are not too expensive. I got volunteered again to do grandson watching duty tonight and tomorrow (I guess school is out), so I don't know if I'll get much done till Wednesday. I'm feeling pretty good about that
