kohler gen

[mbulriss]

Joe,

I am tracing the same problem with my 83 PT right now.

First of all, make sure your genset start battery is really up to
snuff. A weak battery won't spin the diesel fast enough to ignite.
Have the battery load tested to be sure that it is good. Since you
are in IN and have seen some recent lower temps, this is a good first
check. Especially if the battery has not been on a charger.

Second, assuming you have the Perkins Diesel, is the push-pull fuel
staring solenoid (on the driver's side under the exhaust manifold)
engaging (retracting the rod) when you try to crank the engine? If
not, you can maually retract it to get the engine started.

If none of the above, then unfortunately you probably have an air leak
that has developed somewhere in the fuel delivery system. As with
yours, mine worked fine three or four weeks ago, then a cold front
came through and now the fuel system keeps getting air bound.
Something contracted somewhere in the cold. I have tightened all the
fuel system connections, put on new filters and o-rings, filled them
with fuel, and primed them again and again, all to no avail so far.
You can pump that little primer as Ernie suggested, but it is much
faster just to put a good battery charger on the battery and crank the
engine to prime it. Don't crank so long long at one time that you
burn up the starter! :^0

As far as priming goes, before you crack that first injector, make
sure the injector pump is full. There are two (5/16") fuel/air
bleeder screws on the side of it near the fuel intake line on the
back. If you remove the lower one and crank the engine, it will shoot
a stream of fuel about 5 feet when the injector pump primes itself.
Stop cranking, re-insert the bleeder screw loosely, crank again to
expell any air and re-tighten the bleeder screw while cranking. At
this point the Perkins may or may not fire, or you may have to finish
bleeding the injector(s) while cranking, as Ernie stated, to finish
bleeding it. If you are lucky, after you bleed the injector, and the
Perkins starts and continues running, you are done. If it dies again
after running a few seconds, you have an air leak somewhere in the
fuel lines (I am assuming here that the injector pump did prime itself
and thus is not bad). Now you have a real problem.

You will have to search for and find that air leak. That's where I am
at now. Could be a bad filter gasket, but since you have hopefully
checked/replaced them now, it is somewhere else. All those steel fuel
lines are flared at the ends and are prone to developing hair line
cracks in the flares due to all the vibrating (sometimes nearly
invisible cracks). This is real common on small tractors and bobcats
that use the Perkins diesel. Could be any one of the fuel lines. A
quick fix if you find a crack in one of the flares is to use some
flared ferrel inserts that they make for such fuel line repairs. A
good diesel shop should have an assortment of sizes. If there is no
cracked steel lines, then there could be a pinhole sucking air on the
fuel feed lines from the tank to the racor or from the racor to the
fuel distribution block on the back of the engine. Unfortunately, I
know of no good way to find the source except by manually searching.
I don't think one of those sonic sensors that work to find air leaks
will help on a suction problem unless it is pretty substantial. If you
can't get the engine running long enough to check, it won't help anyway.

Anybody got any other ideas for finding fuel air leakes???

Mike Bulriss
83 PT40 "Stagecoach" - For Sale
91 PT40 "Texas Minivan"
San Antonio, TX


--- In WanderlodgeForum@yahoogroups.com, "mjzakowski"
<mjzakowski@j...> wrote:
>
> Have a kohler gen that was working. Now I am trying to get ready to
> leave for AZ and it won't start. Is their away that it lost it's
> prime. and if so how do I prime it.
> Thanks
> Joe from IN 1984 1/2 PT 40
>