Tractor Will Not Start

[bill18163]

I need help to troubleshoot why a tractor will not start. I'm helping my neighbor with his Cub Cadet 7260 26 HP diesel. We just got done putting a new dual clutch in it and he is having trouble starting it. It cranks well and puts out a puff of smoke but will not start. He says there was somewhat of a problem of this nature even before we did the clutch work but it would start. Battery is good and the starter cranks it over like normal. So, where does a guy start looking with this kind of problem? What do we do first then second, etc., etc., to get started on this problem.

 

[Roadworthy]

As I recall from having lived in NW PA the winters can be a bit chilly. I'd begin by checking glow plug operation - make sure they get power and are not burned out. Is your neighbor running winterized diesel? He should be. Be sure the air cleaner is clean and the air path to the intake is clear. Having done this you can go the next step and be sure you have good fuel flow to the injection pump. Many tractors are gravity fed from the tank to the pump so a blockage in the tank or fuel filter can prevent flow. Of course if you crack a fuel line bleeding off the air will be necessary. Be sure the fuel stop solenoid (if there is one) is permitting a flow of fuel. That's most of the basic stuff. Troubleshooting starts there.

 

[PILOON]

If you checked all the previous suggestions you might try heating things up a bit.
You did not say cold weather.
Heat gun blowing into air Intake?
Construction heater with a blanket over the engine?

I've faced that problem a few times when my block heater quit on me.
Brrrr!

 

[bill18163]

We have the tractor in a heated garage so the cold is not a problem. Today we took a look at the fuel system. We put in a new filter and bled the system at the filter housing and at the fuel injector arrangement. I was going to run a check on the glow plugs but I could find no specs in the service manual. Can someone help me there? I think there should be a spec on resistance if I'm not mistaken. We loosened each injector fuel supply line one at a time and cranked the engine to see if anything would come out. While cranking all we got was an extremely weak pulse. Literally just a drip. That doesn't sound right! Or am I wrong? We had to quit at that point and we will go at it again tomorrow. I am looking at the wiring diagram for the tractor and am focusing at the three wires that enter the back of the solenoid at the injector and would like to trace them tomorrow to see if there is anything wrong there. The wiring diagram is terrible. It is very hard to read the wire color codes and numbers even if you blow it up to a larger size on a computer. I'm thinking that maybe there is no power to that solenoid. There is a fuse in that circuit and I have to check that.

 

[PILOON]

Each glow plug will read low ohms, like 10 or less.
Be sure to disconnect each one from the buss bar that joins them and read from connection to ground.
Also if you cycle the plugs each one should feel warm to touch for a very basic go/no go test.

 

[Zebrafive]

Are you able to post the wiring diagram?

 

[dodge man]

Sounds like it’s not getting fuel. When you are talking wiring are you talking about the fuel stop solenoid? Can you manually trip it to the on position?

 

[bill18163]

Yes we have done that and the stop solenoid does work. We have given up on thinking that wiring is bad somewhere. First of all the wiring diagram is horrible. It is very hard to read because it is blurry. I have to enlarge it on a computer to read the wire designations and some of them I still couldn't read. Believe it or not in some cases the wire color code at some connectors was wrong. Per the wiring diagram it would not be correct. When this tractor broke down and quit running it made a lot of banging noises per my neighbor and we had to tow it into the garage. But why would anything happen with the wiring other than hooking up the wiring wrong when we put it back together after installing the new clutch. All you have is connectors to put back together and you can't put them together wrong. What we can't understand is why you see nothing but a drip of fuel if you disassemble one of the supply tubes or any of them for that matter and crank the engine. Shouldn't it spray out of that supply tube quite hard?

 

[bill18163]

I don't know how to put the wiring diagram in a post. How is that done?

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I'd be checking if there's power to the glow plugs when you glow them.

Then I'd check for fuel getting to the injectors, but you will have problems getting it started without the glow plugs working and a clue to that is, it was having starting problems before you worked on it..

SR