Bleeding stubborn diesel engine, good or bad way?

[Shadow_storm56]

So one of my older engines that's on a water pump, (International engine this time not the perkins one) has an extremely hard to bleed fuel pump if it's ran out of fuel. It's a stationary pump so this does happen from time to time if I forget to check it.

I tried many things to bleed it but finally found one that works good. So you start by taking out the bleeder screws and using air pressure in the tank to pressurize the fuel. Once you get fuel at the bleeders and close them you unfortunately aren't done......

The design of this one if you crack an injector line it let's air back in so you are stuck rolling it over for like 10 mins. So a min or 2 every time you go by until it starts.

I tried using ether to bump it and hope the RPM got it to bleed but it didn't and I didn't want to just feed it either until it ran on it's own.

So basically I decided to use wd40 directly into the intake pipe and just feed it that slowly, it's a lubricant and it burns well so I figured it would be better than ether.

So I did that and after running on wd40 for about a minute or so it finally took and ran on it's own fuel pump.

My curiosity Is would this be bad for some reason? Something about wd40 that I'm not thinking of?

Also why on earth is this one engines injection pump so hard to bleed? At one time or another over the years I have had to bleed every engine we have and the worst I had to do was loosen an injector line for a second. Generally it's just fuel to the bleed screws and away you go. So why is this one such a nightmare?

 

[Shadow_storm56]

Very old photo but its this guy

 

[armylifer]

I have used propane to start both gasoline and diesel engines. I am sure that propane does not do any damage to gasoline engines. I suspect that propane does not do damage to diesel engines but I do not know for sure. I know that propane is much better than using ether though.

 

[Shadow_storm56]

I have used propane to start both gasoline and diesel engines. I am sure that propane does not do any damage to gasoline engines. I suspect that propane does not do damage to diesel engines but I do not know for sure. I know that propane is much better than using ether though.

It's the fact that theirs no lubrication in an engine designed for an oil based fuel.

 

[dlsmith]

Have you tries bleeding the injector lines while the tank is pressurized?
Open the throttle all the way, and turn the engine over slowly until you get each line bled.
Just curious, what IH engine is it?

 

[D2Cat]

Dow do you pressurize the tank?

 

[armylifer]

It's the fact that theirs no lubrication in an engine designed for an oil based fuel.

Agree about no lubrication in the fuel but I know that I have seen propane injection kits for diesel engines. So mixing propane and diesel fuel seems to be okay. Also propane does not wash the lubrication away like ether and alcohol do.

 

[lugbolt]

propane on diesels has kind of gone away, for lots of reasons. N2O kind of became more popular, even though it's cost went way up too.

depending on the engine style, injecting anything into the air intake can hurt it. Most kubota engines are easily destroyed with starting fluid, carb cleaner, etc-and it doesn't take very much to do it. My dad hurt his D662 with Ether, I had to rebuild it this last winter. Runs fine now but it was a pretty pricey mistake to make. 3 pistons 3 rods, rings, gaskets, fluids.

I cant speak for the IH engine. Dad's old 95 F250 had the IH T444 variant, which he wouldn't put glow plugs in it so every time he went to cold start in the winter, he'd spray it with the starting fluid and the RPM would shoot to the moon until it ran out of starting fluid, then back to normal idle. After he passed I had to sell it, but also had to put glow plugs and such in it. Pain in the butt-BUT-the older i get the less I want to work on stuff.

 

[Shadow_storm56]

Have you tries bleeding the injector lines while the tank is pressurized?
Open the throttle all the way, and turn the engine over slowly until you get each line bled.
Just curious, what IH engine is it?

I think the engine is a Cummins but I can't remember I'll have to look again. I tried many ways to bleed it, very stubborn. I didn't trying cracking the injector line while having high pressure in the tank... could be worth a try.

 

[Shadow_storm56]

propane on diesels has kind of gone away, for lots of reasons. N2O kind of became more popular, even though it's cost went way up too.

depending on the engine style, injecting anything into the air intake can hurt it. Most kubota engines are easily destroyed with starting fluid, carb cleaner, etc-and it doesn't take very much to do it. My dad hurt his D662 with Ether, I had to rebuild it this last winter. Runs fine now but it was a pretty pricey mistake to make. 3 pistons 3 rods, rings, gaskets, fluids.

I cant speak for the IH engine. Dad's old 95 F250 had the IH T444 variant, which he wouldn't put glow plugs in it so every time he went to cold start in the winter, he'd spray it with the starting fluid and the RPM would shoot to the moon until it ran out of starting fluid, then back to normal idle. After he passed I had to sell it, but also had to put glow plugs and such in it. Pain in the butt-BUT-the older i get the less I want to work on stuff.

It sounds awful on starting fluid, very knocky so when it didn't stay running right away I was like nope time for plan B. Sounded fine on WD but apparently in the case of stubborn bleeding you can also just spray in diesel itself.

 

[Shadow_storm56]

It's a IH 6590

 

[Fedup]

So when you bleed it, do you start at the filter, then bleed the pump at the lower bleed screw before cracking injector lines and using the starter? Looks to me it should be pretty straight forward and by no means all that hard to start.

 

[Shadow_storm56]

So when you bleed it, do you start at the filter, then bleed the pump at the lower bleed screw before cracking injector lines and using the starter? Looks to me it should be pretty straight forward and by no means all that hard to start.

Yup literally the same way I always bleed them. Just never bleeds properly.... fuel coming out all the bleed screws isn't enough