Well...we finally have the rest of the story.....
I can't tell you how many hours I've now fiddled with this thing. Today, I decided to hook it behind my backhoe and drag it up/down the road I live on. Logic being... if there is an air bubble in there, then maybe I can get the motor to spin faster, longer by pulling it, than trying to use the starter.
Dragged it one way...stopped (had friend on tractor) Gave him a can of ether and told him to give it a shot while dragging...he did so and the engine "lept to life" then of course, after the ether was gone, sputterred away and died...
Got home (in the rain I might add) and decided it was time to simply remove the injector pump because it simply was NOT putting out pressure. Yes, it was "spritzing" but nothing under any kind of pressure.
Remember this is gravity fed with no fuel sending pump? Now I've got to drain the entire 15 gallons out of the fuel tank so I don't dump it all over the place when I take the injection pump off.
(doing so, I of course, made a mess)
While that was draining, I thought I'd go ahead and start to disassemble the pump from the tractor... I got all the lines off and took it off. I was preparing to set it down and just by some stupid reason, I took my fingers and rotated the drive head. Well... don't you know that the fuel came out under more pressure with a flick of my FINGERS than it had when it was connected to the tractor?!!!
Like I said before...I'm not a 'mechanic' but I AM mechanically inclined... my little voice said this should not be so!!
Soooooo, that actually caused me to feel better. I set the pump down (remebmer, this is in the rain)
my eyes then went to the drive unit.
If you recall...I had previously removed the pump to make sure the drive unit was working (it was) Something isn't right though...so I look closer.
The drive "pin" that fits into the actual head of the pump.... iS MISSING!!
The pump has NOTHING on the drive head actually driving it, OTHER than the film of oil on the head that mates up with the flat surface of the pump (I know that might not make sense...)
Put another way... put some grease on both your hands, take them flat together...palm to palm... and try to turn, 'with positive displacement' one hand relative to the other. Now try same thing BUT allow a finger of one hand to stick between fingers of the other hand as your drive pin. Under the latter deal, no matter how much grease is on your hands, your drive finger will lock the other hand up...
I was mystified... now I have to take the drive head on the tractor apart. You can be sure this has never been apart since the day this was made.
(remember, it was raining)
I took the 8 or so bolts out of this sandwiched piece and the front cover came off, exposing the gear drive to the pump.
What intrigued me was... under the gear, at the base of this housing...was a BOLT!! A loose bolt!!!
This bolt does NOT fit anywhere that I can see.
The drive head that actually connects to and turns the driven head on the pump.... is a circle about 2 inches in diamater. There are three holes in it (non-threaded) and a fourth hole, much smaller in diamater.
I can see further into the front end of the tractor... I see MORE BOLTS!!
Ohhhhhhhh, this is getting very intersting... I get my long necked flex-magnet... pull them out.
I now have one 1/2" bolt in my hand, with threads and a star washer... I also have two 1/2" "bolts" but these are interesting... they are more like rounded "pins". The third item is maybe a 1/8" "pin"... I put the LITTLE pin into the tiny hole on the drive head and it won't fit.
I put the 1/2" bolts into the non threaded holes on the drive head and THEY won't fit.
I turn around and go from the fan belt side of the engine to the opposite side (where the injector pump actually slides into the holder) and try the little 1/8" pin there... voila... if fits like a charm.
I then realize that two of the three 1/2" bolts... are not "pins" but rather, the've been in the front of that gearbox for a LONGGGGGGGGGG time and have been worn down through a tumbling motion. They are actually bolts that have had the threads virtually sanded off.
I still do not know where they go, they clearly do NOT go anywhere in this housing.
I put the pump back on, just to see what would happen with the tractor powering this instead of my fingers. I didn't even attach any fuel lines (some already in it)
I cranked the starter and WATCH OUT!!!
There were some (small) sprays of fuel EVERYWHERE under pressure!!!
Knowing I had this problem licked, I put things back together and sure enough, the tractor starts & runs like a champ now.
Although I do not know the story on the three bolts, here is what I'm sure, happened to the actual drive pin.
As I previously tried to put the fuel pump into the drive slot... I jiggered it around a bit so the drive slot on it's head, would find the drive pin on the drive unit.
I'm sure that oil/grease probably found the pin...pulled it OUT and as I continued to jigger it around...the pin went THROUGH one of the three (non threaded) holes that are on the drive head, falling through to the OTHER side (fan belt side)
I interpreted this as the unit fitting and locked things up, not knowing that I had a flat drive surface, trying to drive a flat surface on the pump. It would in fact, turn the pump but I now realize, very very weakly. Because it was probalby turning the pump over once for every eight or so times, that it SHOULD have turned it over.
This well explains my comments about getting some sporadic spurts and that not making sense to me.
I got the tractor running, put the box blade on it and FINALLY got to move some rocks that were dumped onto my driveway 6 weeks ago. Oh... and did I tell you that it's been raining?
I'm soaking wet....covered in oil...covered in diesel...and covered in grease and ya know what? I don't care!!!
I finally got that bugger running!!