Fermenter
New member
Here's hoping this will prove amusing enough for someone to chip in and give us a hand!
This old Fiat 615 belongs to my neighbour. Lately it has been difficult to start and prone to stalling. Most recently it lost power gradually and continually over a period of a couple of minutes or so but fortunately he was able to get it back to its parking spot - where it will probably still be in 20 years unless we can get it moving again. Unfortunately getting a mechanic out here is likely to prove too expensive for him.
There are actually 2 problems I need to solve - first is whatever is causing the trouble, and second is fixing what I suspect is a series of errors from my neighbour's unskilled attempts to fix the first. Neither of us know the first thing about diesels, but I'm keen to learn.
He seems to think the problem is due to a fuel blockage somewhere, and that he has also made it worse by trying to start it with various things disconnected thereby getting air in the lines. He's convinced that some major bleeding operation is required, but he doesn't know how or where (although that hasn't stopped him from trying).
I've taken a shot of the fuel system and labelled various points:
1-4 are the lines going to the top of the cylinders. We've checked the lines at the top and we get fuel at each cylinder when hand priming, which makes me suspect that air is not the problem, but perhaps pressure is.
16 is obviously the throttle linkage. 12 and 15 are dipsticks, which were dry inspiring him to fill everything with diesel, including the cap at 11. I'm inclined to think that that whole part of the structure (7, 10, 11, 15, 19) is actually some kind of gearbox arrangement that alters the fuelpump's output pressure based on throttle position - is that correct? Presumably it should be filled with a suitable lubricating oil and not diesel?!
I assume that 20 is the fuel feed from the tank, 13 is a breather/return to the tank and that the primer 14 essentially does the same thing the fuel pump does when the engine is running?
19 is a button that springs out when released, he thinks that may be a cold start button and that it will probably stay in if required.
We normally see some smoke belching from the exhaust stack when turning the engine over, which gives us a clue that something is at least getting to the cylinders and burning. However, we aren't getting anything at the moment - which suggests to me that either there is no fuel in the cylinder, too much fuel in the cylinder, or the glow plug/s (if it even has them, we can't see any electrical connections in the block) are not functioning.
I'd really appreciate any pointers on how best to proceed here!
This old Fiat 615 belongs to my neighbour. Lately it has been difficult to start and prone to stalling. Most recently it lost power gradually and continually over a period of a couple of minutes or so but fortunately he was able to get it back to its parking spot - where it will probably still be in 20 years unless we can get it moving again. Unfortunately getting a mechanic out here is likely to prove too expensive for him.
There are actually 2 problems I need to solve - first is whatever is causing the trouble, and second is fixing what I suspect is a series of errors from my neighbour's unskilled attempts to fix the first. Neither of us know the first thing about diesels, but I'm keen to learn.
He seems to think the problem is due to a fuel blockage somewhere, and that he has also made it worse by trying to start it with various things disconnected thereby getting air in the lines. He's convinced that some major bleeding operation is required, but he doesn't know how or where (although that hasn't stopped him from trying).
I've taken a shot of the fuel system and labelled various points:
1-4 are the lines going to the top of the cylinders. We've checked the lines at the top and we get fuel at each cylinder when hand priming, which makes me suspect that air is not the problem, but perhaps pressure is.
16 is obviously the throttle linkage. 12 and 15 are dipsticks, which were dry inspiring him to fill everything with diesel, including the cap at 11. I'm inclined to think that that whole part of the structure (7, 10, 11, 15, 19) is actually some kind of gearbox arrangement that alters the fuelpump's output pressure based on throttle position - is that correct? Presumably it should be filled with a suitable lubricating oil and not diesel?!
I assume that 20 is the fuel feed from the tank, 13 is a breather/return to the tank and that the primer 14 essentially does the same thing the fuel pump does when the engine is running?
19 is a button that springs out when released, he thinks that may be a cold start button and that it will probably stay in if required.
We normally see some smoke belching from the exhaust stack when turning the engine over, which gives us a clue that something is at least getting to the cylinders and burning. However, we aren't getting anything at the moment - which suggests to me that either there is no fuel in the cylinder, too much fuel in the cylinder, or the glow plug/s (if it even has them, we can't see any electrical connections in the block) are not functioning.
I'd really appreciate any pointers on how best to proceed here!
