Tractor wont start on incline

[Komrade]

Several people have made suggestions in this thread - but most are without + or - feedback on what was found - just "it still isn't working right". We could use more about if and how each idea was looked at what was found.

I don't think that's fair.
The only idea I haven't touched yet is actually testing the fuel pump.
All others I have either ruled out and provided feedback on, as well as found many others in other threads that I have referenced ..
I provided feedback on the fuel pump as well (sucks fuel out of fuel glass w/ fuel turned off from the tank).

 

[Komrade]

It was this

If the problem gets worse as the engine warms up, I would consider the diesel fuel is contaminated with gasoline. Before you spend a lot of money on parts, I would drain the tank and replace the fuel with clean fresh diesel from a reliable source. Drain some of the fuel into a flat pan and you should be able to smell the gasoline vapors evaporating from the diesel.

I also figured out how the mistake was made.. The small gas station where I get gas has 2 pumps, each pump has two outlets.. 1 of the pumps has diesel as 2nd, the other has non-ethanol gas as 2nd. I loaded up by diesel cans with non-ethanol gas, assuming it was diesel coming out of secondary nozzle (I only paid attention to that today when I went back to get real diesel)

So the full story is something like the following
* as I was climbing and digging, jerking around on a fairly steep hill probably got air into the fuel lines
* since I had air in the system (and poor battery) I had trouble starting
* once I dumped 5 gallons of gas into the tank, we managed to start the tractor with getting air out of the system
* probably got 30 mins out of diesel that was still in fuel lines/filter
* not sure how I got few mins out of tractor later to do any work
* since it was mostly gas in the lines, with whatever diesel left floating on top of the tank I continued struggling with starting and running the tractor
* once gas was drained, replaced with diesel and can rev up to 3000 RPM

 

[dirttoys]

It was this

I also figured out how the mistake was made.. The small gas station where I get gas has 2 pumps, each pump has two outlets.. 1 of the pumps has diesel as 2nd, the other has non-ethanol gas as 2nd. I loaded up by diesel cans with non-ethanol gas, assuming it was diesel coming out of secondary nozzle (I only paid attention to that today when I went back to get real diesel)

So the full story is something like the following
* as I was climbing and digging, jerking around on a fairly steep hill probably got air into the fuel lines
* since I had air in the system (and poor battery) I had trouble starting
* once I dumped 5 gallons of gas into the tank, we managed to start the tractor with getting air out of the system
* probably got 30 mins out of diesel that was still in fuel lines/filter
* not sure how I got few mins out of tractor later to do any work
* since it was mostly gas in the lines, with whatever diesel left floating on top of the tank I continued struggling with starting and running the tractor
* once gas was drained, replaced with diesel and can rev up to 3000 RPM

Thanks for getting back with the cause.

Glad you found it, hope the gas didn't hurt anything.

Best,

ed

 

[Komrade]

Put about 5 hours on tractor since, mostly digging and backfilling with backhoe, but also transporting material with front loader. So far, no issues. I heard of very different outcomes with cars. Happy with my tractor being able to deal with my mistake.

 

[rbargeron]

Nice looking ditch - glad it all turned out ok.

 

[Richard]

Happy ending for sure!

I was going to comment about a somewhat similar situation I had once. It might be worth knowing that I've got a glass sediment filter but it's so old, you can't see through it for the crust of dust/dirt/years on it.

My backhoe would "idle" just fine and I could "idle" while in gear and move about. Once I applied throttle, it died.

Long story short, the sediment bowl was essentilly full of water that you couldn't really see because of the decades of muck on the glass bowl.

It was essentially full of water so a bare trickle of diesel would get by letting you idle, but you accelerate and it starved.

Cleaned out the water and that fixed it.

I've since smashed that glass bowl when a branch on the ground reached up to touch it.... so now I have a nice, clean new one installed.

 

[Hay Dude]

In the future, try not to use starter fluid. It works, but it’s risky.
Glad you got it fixed!