TnAndy
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2013
- Messages
- 1,993
- Location
- East Tennessee
- Tractor
- Yanmar LX410...IHI 35J excavator Woodmizer LT40
For the 3rd or 4th time over the years I've owned my 2012 LX410, something has gotten in the tank and block the fuel flow out of the tiny 1/4" fitting in the bottom of the tank. Last time was a week ago....couldn't run it more than 10 minutes without it shutting down from fuel starvation. You can easily tell, if you jump off quick.....the plastic fuel bowl/strainer under the right rear fender will have air in it where the engine pump pulled all it could, tank simply not supplying enough to keep up due to something floating around in the tank, blocking the fuel outlet.
If you leave the key on, the little booster pump ticks away (located right above the fuel bowl), enough fuel dribbles into the bowl, and the booster pump sends it on to the engine pump, and you can fire it up again for a little while (time varies), until whatever it is floats back over the outlet hole....and the process repeats.
Last time, it was a small wasp. I drained the tank, used a Rigid inspection camera to look down in the tank, and a pair of long 'grabber' tongs to grab the wasp and remove. That was a couple years ago. Only way I could figure it got in there was it must have flown into the fuel nozzle from my gravity feed tank....because there is a 10 micron filter between the tank and the hose, so it sure didn't come thru that.
Since then, I've always covered the nozzle end with a plastic cap....so I have no clue what the issue was this time, and don't care....it sure doesn't take much of anything to cause the problem.
This time, I got it in the shop, drained the fuel, removed the tank (royal pain), then cut the plastic fuel outlet fitting off the tank. Used a step type 'Unibit' to drill into the plastic tank, going slowly to get the right size to get this strainer to cut new threads into the plastic tank bottom (it's fairly thick).
Strainer:
Put an O ring on the threads of the strainer, seated to the base, and used a socket/ratchet to force the strainer to cut new threads in the tank. Then screwed a brass 1/4 MPT x barbed fitting with some oil/gas pipe dope on it, into the 1/4" FPT inside of the strainer to connect back to the Yanmar 1/4" fuel hose. Rinsed the tank out with some diesel fuel to get out whatever was in there + my plastic drill shavings ( which was the issue the FIRST time this happened....factory drill shavings in a wadded up in a ball), put the tank back on, filled up with fuel and went back to work !
NOW I've got a stainless steel, aircraft rated, mesh screen sticking up 2" in the tank which will be almost impossible to block fuel flow any more......what Yanmar ( and every manufacturer of fuel tanks) ought to have put in there in the first place.
If you leave the key on, the little booster pump ticks away (located right above the fuel bowl), enough fuel dribbles into the bowl, and the booster pump sends it on to the engine pump, and you can fire it up again for a little while (time varies), until whatever it is floats back over the outlet hole....and the process repeats.
Last time, it was a small wasp. I drained the tank, used a Rigid inspection camera to look down in the tank, and a pair of long 'grabber' tongs to grab the wasp and remove. That was a couple years ago. Only way I could figure it got in there was it must have flown into the fuel nozzle from my gravity feed tank....because there is a 10 micron filter between the tank and the hose, so it sure didn't come thru that.
Since then, I've always covered the nozzle end with a plastic cap....so I have no clue what the issue was this time, and don't care....it sure doesn't take much of anything to cause the problem.
This time, I got it in the shop, drained the fuel, removed the tank (royal pain), then cut the plastic fuel outlet fitting off the tank. Used a step type 'Unibit' to drill into the plastic tank, going slowly to get the right size to get this strainer to cut new threads into the plastic tank bottom (it's fairly thick).
Strainer:
Put an O ring on the threads of the strainer, seated to the base, and used a socket/ratchet to force the strainer to cut new threads in the tank. Then screwed a brass 1/4 MPT x barbed fitting with some oil/gas pipe dope on it, into the 1/4" FPT inside of the strainer to connect back to the Yanmar 1/4" fuel hose. Rinsed the tank out with some diesel fuel to get out whatever was in there + my plastic drill shavings ( which was the issue the FIRST time this happened....factory drill shavings in a wadded up in a ball), put the tank back on, filled up with fuel and went back to work !
NOW I've got a stainless steel, aircraft rated, mesh screen sticking up 2" in the tank which will be almost impossible to block fuel flow any more......what Yanmar ( and every manufacturer of fuel tanks) ought to have put in there in the first place.
