Oil & Fuel DK45 Engine troubleshoot

Athrawn17 · Sep 4, 2016

Hello gurus,
I've had no issues with my tractor until today. Been away on vacation and the tractor has sat in the shed for about a month. Has only 65 hours on her and just had the 50 hour full service done in the spring. Everything was running great, opened the shed and hopped on the seat. Engine cranks, but won't fire. How do I start to troubleshoot this? Had a half-tank of diesel in when I turned her off last. I'm thinking it is a fuel problem but not sure where to start.

Thanks!

DieselBound · Sep 4, 2016

Might be air in the fuel lines*. Is this a mechanical injection pump? If so, crack an injector line or two and crank until you get fuel; tighten and then crank and it should start.

* My B7800 has done this twice in the nearly 6 years I've owned it. Just did it the other day: and I'd been running it the previous day. No idea why. If it's a regular occurrence THEN you'll need to figure out what's going on. Otherwise, just get it running. (ha ha, just had to do this on the wife's car after I changed the fuel filter! it's an older TDI)

k0ua · Sep 4, 2016

Does the fuel shut off relay that operates the fuel shut off solenoid on the injector pump work. The fuel solenoid has two coils the pull coil that is operated for 1 second by the fuel relay that pulls 28 amps of current, and then the hold coil that is run off of the key buss, that pulls less than an amp of current. These could be the problem. Do you hear the loud clack of the fuel solenoid pulling back when you turn the key on? The fuel relay is driven by a 1 second pulse from the display module. The relays are the most failure prone of all of this fuel chain of events.

Athrawn17 · Sep 5, 2016

Yes, fuel solenoid is working, can hear the loud clack when turning on the key. I'm thinking the issue is air in the lines, going to figure out how to prime/bleed the system and then check the lines to make sure the connections are all tight.

Athrawn17 · Sep 5, 2016

To my future self and anyone else who is having this issue. After turning the fuel cock to "air", and cranking the engine over for 5-10 seconds she fired up. I must have a small leak in a hose somewhere that is allowing some air into the system after it has been sitting for awhile. Moral of this story is "don't go on vacation" :laughing: