Any heavy diesel experts on here?

[Old Salt]

Fill that filter housing before replacing to help with the bleeding. If you have had it firing on all four it may help to slacken the connections to the injectors, plenty of rags and turn it over.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Fill that filter housing before replacing to help with the bleeding. If you have had it firing on all four it may help to slacken the connections to the injectors, plenty of rags and turn it over.

It looks very much like getting fuel to the injector pump is the issue. There's no lift pump so fuel is sucked in. Filter housing was full (from my priming efforts presumably ).
There's a priming pump showing as an option on the injector pump but not fitted- high pressure fuel lines are in the way so it hasn't fallen off .
The only priming pump is up top near the prefilter so it may be a case of slacking the return from the injector pump, prime like mad til i get some fuel appearing there then nip it up and fire it up

 

[Munroast]

This is cheering me up no end (the fuel system diagnosis). Think its 2 but not certain, going to try and pin that down today. 300,000 kms, 37 years young . And special tools needed to pull the injectors of course..

just run in at that, those engines have a reputation of going on for a bout ever, I'm sure there are many million mile plus ones. Nothing like the stupidly over-complex nonsense that they make now, where a 100k might be a miricle.

slightly slacken the pipe to each injector in turn just to check they are all getting fuel.

 

[robinbanks]

See if it will run fine and rev up when run straight from a clean container of fuel under the bonnet. One of my favourite tricks for this is to take a rubber hose of suitable size for the fuel intake end in the injector pump, and drill a hole in a 2 litre pop bottle lid that is just a bit less than the outer diameter of the hose, stuffing the hose through the hole. Fill the bottle with diesel and connect hose to injector pump, invert the bottle and secure it higher up than the pump. It'll self bleed and have enough diesel to run the engine even though the pump will be returning a large proportion to the proper fuel tank

If it runs nice with this setup, then you're likely looking at a fault of blockages in the fuel delivery system, possibly right the way back to the tank, maybe even crud in the tank. Running a new fuel line (10mm copper pipe) might be faster and easier than clearing the old one, but you could try blasting the lines backwards.

Just bear in mind that fuel tanks often have a small open topped cup inside where the fuel pickup and return sit; it helps keep fuel near the pickup if climbing a steep incline on low fuel level and the majority fuel slips to the back of the tank..
..but it can also help trap crud near the pick-up that is hard to clean out

 

[oldbutnotdead]

See if it will run fine and rev up when run straight from a clean container of fuel under the bonnet. One of my favourite tricks for this is to take a rubber hose of suitable size for the fuel intake end in the injector pump, and drill a hole in a 2 litre pop bottle lid that is just a bit less than the outer diameter of the hose, stuffing the hose through the hole. Fill the bottle with diesel and connect hose to injector pump, invert the bottle and secure it higher up than the pump. It'll self bleed and have enough diesel to run the engine even though the pump will be returning a loathe proportion to the proper fuel tank

If it runs nice with this setup, then you're likely looking at a fault of blockages in the fuel delivery system, possibly right the way back to the tank, maybe even crud in the tank. Running a new fuel line (10mm copper pipe) might be faster and easier than clearing the old one, but you could try blasting the lines backwards.

Just bear in mind that fuel tanks often have a small open topped cup inside where the fuel pickup and return sit; it helps keep fuel near the pickup if climbing a steep incline on low fuel level and the majority fuel slips to the back of the tank..
..but it can also help trap crud near the pick-up that is hard to clean out

Ta. Looking at the sight glass the priming pump is pulling fuel through from the tank with little effort required but these are all top tips, ta muchly

 

[oldbutnotdead]

HURRAH! Baby lorry is back in business- took about 300 strokes on the priming pump but she lives. Time for an oil change now.
Ta for all the hints and tips
PS don't suppose this was helping (fuel filter)

 

[Burnerman]

Good news! Were you able to see any water in the filter bowl?
I've found that when these clunker diesels stop because of no fuel, just slackening one of the injector nuts on the cylinder head is enough to start them up.....when cranking, obviously.
If the priming filter needs attention again in the morning, it could be one of the flap valves allowing fuel to return to the tank.
I wonder what the noise was?
John

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Oh yes, the actual fault was interesting. Split in the leak pipe from the injectors- which returns to the input on the prefilter (glass bowl). There is no lift pump- there's a suction pump below the injector pump (so sequence is line from tank and leak line from injectors > prefilter > suction pump > main filter > injection pump. )
This means the fuel line is at low pressure so split = no fuel from tank rather than diesel ****ing everywhere. Cute solution really

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Good news! Were you able to see any water in the filter bowl?
I've found that when these clunker diesels stop because of no fuel, just slackening one of the injector nuts on the cylinder head is enough to start them up.....when cranking, obviously.
If the priming filter needs attention again in the morning, it could be one of the flap valves allowing fuel to return to the tank.
I wonder what the noise was?
John

No, no water in either fuel filter (lot of cr*p though). Think @norseman was right about the noise being due to Easystart- probably detonating.
Really didn't want to start on the injectors themselves- torque is 40 Nm so not much chance an open-ender would shift them (not banjos). Might treat myself to the Special Tools before they all become unavailable due to age

 

[Old Salt]

You can get crows foot spanners, ring spanner with a slot cut to pass over the pipe. Worth changing the fuel filter every so often so that its planned rather than breakdown. But glad you have it running, well done.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

You can get crows foot spanners, ring spanner with a slot cut to pass over the pipe. Worth changing the fuel filter every so often so that its planned rather than breakdown. But glad you have it running, well done.

Yeah, them's the things. The Merc special tools are quite natty- crows-foot short ring spanner with a 90 degree bend and a half-inch socket drive on top. $22 in the US, a lot more over here!

 

[Munroast]

You can get crows foot spanners, ring spanner with a slot cut to pass over the pipe. Worth changing the fuel filter every so often so that its planned rather than breakdown. But glad you have it running, well done.

I have some of them - I never knew they were called that think I have only used one of them once.

 

[robinbanks]

Made one once, by chopping a section out of a normal ring spanner to refit a steering rack to a rolls Royce shadow 2 without major work moving other stuff out the way.. had to do em up a 12th of a turn at a time too..

Still reminded of that job every time I look at my Aldi spanner set with the 18mm ring now a C shape

ps; not a trick I'd use on a 40Nm fastener; it's bust the spanner for sure, but it sufficed for nipping these up..

 

[ericmark]

I had to look to see what heavy diesel, glad fixed, I remember being shown a high speed diesel on the MV England it revs to 300 RPM, most would only go to around 190 RPM, the National we had at college was 150 RPM, but it does seem it only needed a new filter and bleeding.

It does depend on the pump, the in line Sims is different to a CAV rotary pump, and the Cummins with the PT injection system was different to the rest.

Even our little 2'6" narrow gauge railway has a 523 HP diesel engine designed clearly to last, built by Mitsubishi of Japan in 1972, odd the exhaust goes down on the track.

All depends how much you push the engine, the ones used in JCB diggers can it seems be pushed a bit, they put two in a car, and tuned them up a bit, 750 HP each, and they got to car the JCB Max to 350 MPH using only 650 HP from each engine. Larger versions of wagon engines are used in heavy plant, I saw a 10 cylinder detroit two stroke out of a compressor fitted to a kenworth, now that did motor.

Now the Deltic on the trains that was some motor, two stroke, similar to the old Commer, would have loved to have worked on one of those, but before my time, but today alas can't work on them without a computer, yet the Sentinel comes to the local railway every year, I do like the old stuff.

 

[Old Salt]

Ah yes the Napier Deltic, powered minesweepers and fast patrol boats. Some good clips on Youtube.