JD water in fuel

ply32 · Feb 23, 2015

Have a JD 5105 that has water in fuel. I buy from reputable fuel station and water is not from them. I have talked to several owners of JD in different areas and all seem to have same problem. We keep tank full and there is no difference still condensation in fuel filter and we do not leave it outside. Is there a special fuel filter that will separate water from fuel? We have a yanmar diesel tractor as well and have never had this problem. We also have a diesel Dodge 3500 that sits outside and no problem with it either. Either the tank is designed wrong or something. Any help would be appreciated

Diamondpilot · Feb 23, 2015

Is rain water a possibility?

Chris

JD5210 · Feb 23, 2015

This was taken from the 5105 operators manual, link to manual included. Open fuel filter drain to bleed accumulated moisture and sediment from filter into container. Tighten drain when clear fuel runs from drain. I would do this more often to help reduce the amount of water that gets to the engine.

You might also want to purchase a fuel conditioner. I have been happy with JDs I have include a link. This was taken from the write-up Moisture control improves water tolerance and helps minimize microbial growth.

http://manuals.deere.com/omview/OMRE72817_19/?tM=FR

https://jdparts.deere.com/partsmkt/document/english/pmac/5496_fb_SummerWinterDieselConditioner.htm

woodchipper · Feb 23, 2015

I have a JD710. I do as well have water in the fuel issues with this tractor. Both of my fuel filter canisters have a lower bowl. They are designed
to separate water from fuel, as well as heavy sediments. Gravity deposits them on the bottom of the bowl. They are made of glass, so you can easily see if you have any contamination. At the bottom of the bowl, there is a bleeder screw. So, you open up the screw, and let the bowl empty itself, no tools required. Very effective.
As a helper, I put in the tank a little bit of fuel water displacing antifreeze. It helps.
But to know where all that water is coming from...my best clue is the the fuel tank. It is made of aluminum. Aluminum will condense way more as steel, as it conducts heat/cold in an extremely rapid manner.
So, bleeding your filters, and using water dispersing fuel additive is the best I could do, and it works good.
I hope this may be of help to you as well!

ply32 · Feb 24, 2015

woodchipper said:
I have a JD710. I do as well have water in the fuel issues with this tractor. Both of my fuel filter canisters have a lower bowl. They are designed
to separate water from fuel, as well as heavy sediments. Gravity deposits them on the bottom of the bowl. They are made of glass, so you can easily see if you have any contamination. At the bottom of the bowl, there is a bleeder screw. So, you open up the screw, and let the bowl empty itself, no tools required. Very effective.
As a helper, I put in the tank a little bit of fuel water displacing antifreeze. It helps.
But to know where all that water is coming from...my best clue is the the fuel tank. It is made of aluminum. Aluminum will condense way more as steel, as it conducts heat/cold in an extremely rapid manner.
So, bleeding your filters, and using water dispersing fuel additive is the best I could do, and it works good.
I hope this may be of help to you as well!

I will try putting in the tank little bit of fuel water displacing antifreeze. It just seems JD would do a better job of design to stop the condensation. As I said previously, we never leave the tractor outside to sit in the elements since 5 years ago when we were clearing the driveway of snow and the tractor completely stopped and had to be towed back to the building.

chevy · Feb 25, 2015

I have been having this same problem with my JD4120. I have owned diesel tractors since 1997. I never had a single problem with water in the fuel until I bought the 4120 last spring. 5 times I have had enough water in the fuel that the engine quit running.

The water is not coming from my tank, because the tank also supplies my shop furnace & my JD1026R tractor. Neither has had any problem at all. The furnace pickup is directly below the pump pickup, so if there was water in the tank the furnace would get it first. I have had the 1026R about 3 years & never had an issue with water in the fuel on it.

The 4120 is currently at the dealer to repair a coolant leak. I stopped by yesterday to check on it. They told me it died on them because of water in the fuel.

DaisyDukes · Jan 5, 2025

MY 2 CENTS or because of JD, MY 200 bucks on this issue and something no one is saying;

Imagine if there were about 2 hundred tractor owners in each state that had a JD tractor with this water issue, hmm that would be approximately 9600 tractors in the lower 48 states (at $ 500.00 a pop, in repairs for JD would come to approximately $ 4.8 Million) just within the lower 48 states alone! A continuous stream of monies in repairs...

Now they have made another source of monies for their coffers!

Imagine that number times 20,000 JD machines {not just tractors) world wide, and the cost's of repair about $500.00, comes to roughly 96 BILLION... (In some places of the world is much more)!

Another source of monies to their shareholders, and that is just one problem, and the estimate for just the water retention in the fuel tanks, only one of the plethora of problems that owners face...

It and I'm sure lots of other problems are insuring JD from ever going down!

They're raking in BILLIONS of dollars at there customers expense!!

{JD H E A D S talking to one another in the board room, damned it to hell, now they've taken away the source of fixing the damned machines from us, we must come up with another way to rip a new hole in the fabric of our consumers,

(by George we have it);

Let's put a fuel tank on our tractors that gathers water in the fuel systems so they will still need us to do repairs on the tractors and every other kind of machinery we sell!}

There should be a class action against JD for this problem, and (get the powers to be) to do a recall on these inferior products!

Make JD pay to get these tanks replaced with the correct tank to elevate their customers misery.

This is a problem that they should be made to fix!!

These are just rough estimates, I might be off on some of this, but then again...........

That's my $200 on this issue!