Thanks to everyone who gave me advice for the postings I made about in the past on this vehicle. I never did solve the problem, but I got it working adequately to move it for street sweeping. Now, finally, its gotten worse and it won't start.
I'm not consistently getting fuel coming out of the fuel lines going into the fuel injectors. I can open the line at the injector, and crank the starter for an extremely long time, and eventually I will get a drip from that line.
Once fuel starts coming out of that line I can re-connect it to the injector and the vehicle usually starts. If it does start, it is necessary to keep the accelerator pedal pushed all the way down for a while, otherwise the vehicle will immediately stall. Racing the engine after a start guarantees that the vehicle will stay running for a few minutes, but it will eventually stall again.
Am I just pumping air out of the lines, or is something else going on?
I've had occasional stalling issues over the last year, and they always get worse after doing a lot of driving on hills. At first I was assuming either water or sediment in the tank was the problem, but I don't seem to have a ton of water coming out of the separator, and I replaced the fuel filter. You guys on here told me that I may have air getting into the lines, but I never found where.
If the vehicle has started recently, its generally easier to get it to start again right away, without 'pumping the air' for as long. Otherwise I have to run the starter for a long time.
(Also, the fuel in the tank is almost a year old. I took a sample from the filter and its not cloudy or dark, but it doesn't feel/smell exactly the same as diesel from the pump. Could 'degraded fuel' have anything to do with this?)
The exposed tips of the glow plugs won't get above 60 degrees F. Three of those are brand new glow plugs and they test fine. They are getting 12v during the 'warm up the glow plugs' phase of starting. I realize this may be due to damaged batteries, but the starter sounds strong (plenty of current there?), could damaged batteries explain the lack of fuel to the injectors?
The injector pump is an obvious suspect, but once I start getting the drip of fuel from the lines, and as I reconnect the line (while starting the van)
there is a brief period of pressurized fuel spray before I finish tightening the fuel line - that means the injector pump is fine, right?
I'm not consistently getting fuel coming out of the fuel lines going into the fuel injectors. I can open the line at the injector, and crank the starter for an extremely long time, and eventually I will get a drip from that line.
Once fuel starts coming out of that line I can re-connect it to the injector and the vehicle usually starts. If it does start, it is necessary to keep the accelerator pedal pushed all the way down for a while, otherwise the vehicle will immediately stall. Racing the engine after a start guarantees that the vehicle will stay running for a few minutes, but it will eventually stall again.
Am I just pumping air out of the lines, or is something else going on?
I've had occasional stalling issues over the last year, and they always get worse after doing a lot of driving on hills. At first I was assuming either water or sediment in the tank was the problem, but I don't seem to have a ton of water coming out of the separator, and I replaced the fuel filter. You guys on here told me that I may have air getting into the lines, but I never found where.
If the vehicle has started recently, its generally easier to get it to start again right away, without 'pumping the air' for as long. Otherwise I have to run the starter for a long time.
(Also, the fuel in the tank is almost a year old. I took a sample from the filter and its not cloudy or dark, but it doesn't feel/smell exactly the same as diesel from the pump. Could 'degraded fuel' have anything to do with this?)
The exposed tips of the glow plugs won't get above 60 degrees F. Three of those are brand new glow plugs and they test fine. They are getting 12v during the 'warm up the glow plugs' phase of starting. I realize this may be due to damaged batteries, but the starter sounds strong (plenty of current there?), could damaged batteries explain the lack of fuel to the injectors?
The injector pump is an obvious suspect, but once I start getting the drip of fuel from the lines, and as I reconnect the line (while starting the van)
there is a brief period of pressurized fuel spray before I finish tightening the fuel line - that means the injector pump is fine, right?
