Oh Deere......

 8:03 am - Tuesday - October 5th - Coupeville, WA - 57° F, 83% humidity, wind 29 mph out of the southeast......overcast, drizzly today with a forecast high of 59° F.  On this date in 2017 TLE and I were boarding a flight out of Denver to SoCal for our son's (Tim) wedding to Laila....↴

When we were in Coupeville a little over a year ago Bob's John Deer loader/backhoe had developed a fuel deprivation issue right in the middle some work he was doing on his property.  He tried to fix it, but gave up.  I promised him when we returned that I would help him get it going again.  It's been sitting here for 18 months without moving......

.....when he left off trying to fix it he forgot to put the fuel cap back in place, so rain water got into the diesel tank, so there were two things we had to do before we could troubleshoot the fuel starvation issue.....drain the diesel tank of the contaminated fuel, and charge up the 6 volt batteries......

.....since there are no electrical outlets near the loader, and the two 6 volt batteries (hooked up in series to equal 12 volts) are quite large, and difficult to move I drove Karen's Infinity SUV down to the tractor, hooked up jumper cables to the batteries while I worked at draining the tank.

I had to remove the front steel plate to get at the underside of the diesel tank (eight 3/4" bolts affix it to the loader).....I had to use my breaker bar on 4 of them.....

....the petcock valve used to drain the tank is located under the tank, and just above the 300 lb. counter balance weight, and very difficult to reach.  I was able to open it up, but it wouldn't drain, so figuring it was clogged I proceeded to unscrew it from the fuel line.  Due to the cramped quarters it took me the better part of an hour to get it out, but get it out I did.  In all we drained 13 gallons of contaminated diesel of the tank.....

.....the petcock valve was attached to the right side of that brass 'T' in the picture below...the fuel line is attached to the left side of the 'T'.....

The petcock drain valve I removed

There should be a hole there to allow the fuel to drain out, but it appears the hole was brazed shut....why?

Here is what is should look like

.....after examining the petcock valve it became obvious that someone had closed the hole by brazing it.....why I have no idea.  At any rate we'll have to get a new one when we put things back together.

Once the fuel was drained from the diesel tank Bob and I decided the next step would be to remove all the fuel lines from the tank to the injector pump to be sure they are not clogged, or cracked, then reassemble everything.  We know the injector pump is good because it was rebuilt about 18 months ago, and was working when the fuel issue developed, plus the fuel pump is also new, and was working when the loader last ran.

By the time I hauled my tools back up to the trailer it was almost 4 pm.....wow....5 hours just flew by!

The sun is now setting at 6:41 pm, and rising at 7:15 am.....the temps here in Coupeville are running about 10° F cooler than in Seal Rock, and there can be no doubt that Fall has arrived.

Thanks for stopping by!

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