A neighbour has parked a car facing uphill with 5 litres in the tank. Tried to start car but would not start , ran battery flat, then asked me for help.
I deduced the problem was probably the incline and told him to go on the main road on the flat where we tried to start it again we had one spark of life from the engine then nothing.
We noticed some disel leaking from the 2nd cylinder plug (probably from the fuel line which feeds to this plug, none of the others were leaking the fuel line leading to/from this plug was also saturated with fuel - but none of the other fuel lines between plugs were wet with fuel. the fuel line seemed to go from one plug to the next, and onto the next running between plugs, if you are familiar you'll know what I'm talking about, I have never looked at a diesel engine before so this was all new to me.
It failed to start or show any life just turned over. we gave up deciding it was probably air locked.
Then we had one more go and found that it would not even turn over, then it turned over but grudgingly (not like before) the leads were warm but my battery was still good and I had my engine revving so it should have been ok.
I don't understand why it suddenly stopped turning over and then only grudgingly? But I was not the one starting the car so it could have been incompetence on the part of the guy who was trying to start it.
Anyways, How do you fix a diesel with a possible airlock in the fuel line?
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Firstly i'd recommend filling it with 2 diesel cans worth of diesel as you don't want it sucking the rubbish out of the bottom of the tank, crack the injector pipes to 2 injectors and turn the engine over till diesel squirts out. Word of warning the injection process involves high pressures so when you've cracked the pipe DO NOT put your hands near the injector and pipes while the engines turning over. When diesel is coming out of the fuel pipes you've loosened stop cranking the engine over and tighten the pipes back up again. AS long as everything is ok a little more cranking then it should splutter into life.
The thing that is worrying me is that there is so little fuel in the tank it may have sucked the rubbish out of the tank and a blockage may be somewhere. The fuel line you've mentions is like the overflow/return to the tank pipe and would not stop the engine from running as it's not directly involved in the injection process. When it's running again just change it.
Hope this helps
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Thanks
You got it all right, the RAC was called and I watched him do it and asked him questions
the black fuel lines are return lines and one was split so replaced.
there is a button to the left hand side of the engine to press to prime the fuel ...it is to be pressed until it gets stiff then not press anymore.
He then said crank it over while he undid two injectors then he retightened the 2 injectors and all was fixed.
The only thing we didn't do was fill the tank first, he's gone off to fill her up now.
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