Steel Soldiers::Military Vehicles Supersite - View Single Post

steelsoldiers · 07-19-2009, 18:22

Yesterday was another 10 hour work day on the truck at John Winslow's. My main priority was to get the fuel system buttoned up and the air bled out. I was hoping to get it to run on diesel. Once I get it running, then I will be able to seal up the engine, mount the accessory drive, install the cooling system, etc...

First thing I tackled was getting the fuel line hooked up to the mechanical lift pump. Unfortunately, the fitting I purchased here at home was the wrong size. I spent the next hour wandering through the junk yard looking for the right one. I found hundreds of fittings, but nothing would work. Finally, I gave up and drove over to the Scotland Neck Napa to get the proper reducer. Once I got that threaded in I replaced the primary and secondary fuel filters and used the lift pump to get fresh fuel to the injection pump.

Once I had fuel to the IP, I needed to get all of the injector lines hooked back up. That was a challenge because they had all been knocked out of allignement when the military guys yanked the IP before the truck was scrapped. It was a real PITA to get them all started, but after about 30 minutes I had them all started loosely.

Last step before cranking it over was hooking up the return line. There is a rubber line with a banjo fitting that goes from the IP to a copper line that runs back to the tank. Some dimwit had snipped the copper line in two under the truck and stole the back half. The remains of the rubber line had a nice mud dobber nest in it. I took off the rubber remains and replaced it with a good line from the parts truck.

Time for some cranking. I borrowed a deuce from John and got out my slave cable. I used that to crank the truck over allowing the stop solenoid and starter to cool off at certain intervals. After quite a bit of cranking I had fuel seeping at 2 of the nuts. Hmmm.... Then, Casey, who was having John work on his truck yesterday, wandered by to see what was up. He manned the ether can and we cranked the engine and ran it for short bursts on ether. Finally we fuel at 4 nuts. Hmmmm.... why is it taking so long to get the air bled out. I loosened the inlet fitting at the pump to make sure we had good fuel pressure and a geyser of fuel covered me, the truck, and Casey. Wow, that's a lot of line pressure! Casey left and I fiddled around some more with the engine. Finally, I loosened the return line fitting and got a burst of air and fuel! I guess the mud dobbers nest bits had continued down into the copper line and plugged it! That would explain the air lock and lack of starting!

I ran out of time and packed up the tools. Hopefully I'll get back in a few weeks to finish the job. I also got the alternator mounted while I was there giving the starter a cool down. One less thing to worry about!!

Pics later. I only had my camera phone to get them.