I have an early 2000s m120 that started giving me fits last year. 2700 hours.
Machine will bog down, go down to 100-200 rpm, and either spit sputter and puff black smoke and then come back to life, or die out. Does it under a load or without, however it seems to happen more after it's been put under load. Changed the fuel filters, didn't help. Pulled the separator apart, didn't see anything, and put it back together till the new seals came in. At that point we were using it only to haul the round bale wagon and it stopped giving us problems, so I held off on the separator seals.
Changed filters and did the separator seals this spring, and fought to get machine primed. The manual prime just acted like it wasn't building pressure. At one point it did, then I tried to start the tractor, no luck, and the manual prime stopped building pressure again. However...diesel seems to push it's way up out of the primer.
Went to disc today in super nice loose soil and it started acting up again. Wasn't so bad at first, generally just thought I got in a soft spot, but then it got progressively worse. Sputter discing up hill, sputtered discing down hill, right side of the tractor on the high side, left side of the tractor on the high side, did it when I had the disc's up and just turning on the headland, and in low or high range.
I've seen this talked about, but never any answers given...could the seal in the manual prime pump be sucking air? Can it do this even when it's down and screwed shut? Is there a screen somewhere in the separator I missed? Fuel lines deteriorated? Someone mentioned a diaphragm in the lift pump? Or the smaller m8xxx series having a relief valve that needs opened before you prime?Any bit of help will be appreciated, I plan on using this tractor a lot more this year.
Machine will bog down, go down to 100-200 rpm, and either spit sputter and puff black smoke and then come back to life, or die out. Does it under a load or without, however it seems to happen more after it's been put under load. Changed the fuel filters, didn't help. Pulled the separator apart, didn't see anything, and put it back together till the new seals came in. At that point we were using it only to haul the round bale wagon and it stopped giving us problems, so I held off on the separator seals.
Changed filters and did the separator seals this spring, and fought to get machine primed. The manual prime just acted like it wasn't building pressure. At one point it did, then I tried to start the tractor, no luck, and the manual prime stopped building pressure again. However...diesel seems to push it's way up out of the primer.
Went to disc today in super nice loose soil and it started acting up again. Wasn't so bad at first, generally just thought I got in a soft spot, but then it got progressively worse. Sputter discing up hill, sputtered discing down hill, right side of the tractor on the high side, left side of the tractor on the high side, did it when I had the disc's up and just turning on the headland, and in low or high range.
I've seen this talked about, but never any answers given...could the seal in the manual prime pump be sucking air? Can it do this even when it's down and screwed shut? Is there a screen somewhere in the separator I missed? Fuel lines deteriorated? Someone mentioned a diaphragm in the lift pump? Or the smaller m8xxx series having a relief valve that needs opened before you prime?Any bit of help will be appreciated, I plan on using this tractor a lot more this year.