Oil & Fuel Fuel Line Issues

PondCreekFarm · May 28, 2007

While plowing this weekend, mt L3130 simply stopped and would not start. This was most concerning to me given the rain clouds to the southwest and the fact that I was in the middle of my creek trying to cross into my bottom land fields. Despite all my efforts, the tractor would not start. I quickly decided it was fuel related and set about to trying to figure out why the engine was starved for fuel. I replaced the fuel filter with a spare I had in the barn (which in knee deep water is tricky business when you are trying not to pollute the creek at the same time). This did not work either. Ultimately, I had to disconnect the lines from the tank and blow air through them with a compressor tank. This seemed to work after several minutes of sputerring and spitting. So what happened, how do I prevent this in the future, and did I do something incredibly stupid by trying to blow out the lines with air?

Shimon · May 28, 2007

I assume when you say it wouldn't start it was cranking ok but not firing? Did you have white smoke while cranking? Was the old filter that your replaced pretty dirty?

Blowing out the lines is fine. Did you see any junk fly out? How did the interntal of the fuel lines look? Sometimes fuel lines delaminate internally and they collapse under suction from the fuel pump thus starting the injection pump for fuel.

How's she running now?

PondCreekFarm · May 28, 2007

I saw nothing in the old filter to give me a suspicion that it was bad, but I had an extra so I figured why not? As for blowing out the lines, I wcould not see anything. I took the lines off the fueld tank and when I shot air into them, all I heard were bubbles in the fuel tank. I opened the vent cock on the fuel pump, cranked the tactor, it fired up and ran for about five minutes without issue. I then closed the vent cock, replaced the side metal and plowed ten acres without issue. I started it today and it fired right up. I did refill the tnak with fuel, however and am concerned that there might be crud at the bottom of the tank that will cause this issue again.

Shimon · May 28, 2007

If you are concerned about crud in the tank, you can work the tractor till the tank is almost empty then pull the fuel line off the fuel filter and let the fuel drain out into a container then add some clean diesel to the tank while it's draining into your container. If you put in about a gallon then you'll probably wash anything out.

Or if you have a suck-up or something similar you can use it suck the fuel out of the tank and look in there with a flashlight for crud.