wurzner
Member III
Hopefully, I just ran out of fuel yesterday after putting the mast on my boat. When I had the fuel polished in Alameda, the guy told me he thought the tank was full....Hopefully he was wrong. We left the boom area and were heading back when I dropped by the guest dock at west marine. I left the engine running and came back about 10 minutes later with everything running fine. After leaving the dock, the died about a minute out. Not knowing if if was a fuel pump or filter issue versuse just plain out of gas, we went and purchased 2.5 gallons.
I verified that the Racor filter was full and then tried (unsuccessfully) to get fuel to come out of what I believe is the bleeder valve on the pump body. When I opened it, I could hear the pump increase (much more clickly, rapidly), but no fuel ever came out. I then removed the fuel line into the injector pump and there was a good flow of fuel. Next, I removed the 4 fuel lines into the injectors and it a very small amount of fuel was coming out. Based on a call to my diesel mechanic friend who is also a very accomplished sailor, it appeared that I did in fact run out of fuel. The problem is, every time I turned the knurled know (bleeder valve) closed, the engine would start to stumble after about a minute. I read that some of these systems are a self bleeding type and I'm trying to determine if it is meant to stay open. There is a fuel line on the bleeder valve body that goes somewhere, likely to the fuel return circuit. My question is, should this valve be closed? No fuel every came out and it ran fine back to the dock (about 10 minutes) with it open. I can try and close it later today and see if it still stumbles. Also I will fill up later today and hopefully it takes at least 40 gallons suggesting it was fuel starvation.
Any help on the nuances of this engine and bleeder procedure would be helpful. I did read the info at torrensen which is where I found out there are two different bleeder systems.
thanks
shaun (with the mast finally on the boat)
E38-200 #207
Sorcerer, Everett , WA
I verified that the Racor filter was full and then tried (unsuccessfully) to get fuel to come out of what I believe is the bleeder valve on the pump body. When I opened it, I could hear the pump increase (much more clickly, rapidly), but no fuel ever came out. I then removed the fuel line into the injector pump and there was a good flow of fuel. Next, I removed the 4 fuel lines into the injectors and it a very small amount of fuel was coming out. Based on a call to my diesel mechanic friend who is also a very accomplished sailor, it appeared that I did in fact run out of fuel. The problem is, every time I turned the knurled know (bleeder valve) closed, the engine would start to stumble after about a minute. I read that some of these systems are a self bleeding type and I'm trying to determine if it is meant to stay open. There is a fuel line on the bleeder valve body that goes somewhere, likely to the fuel return circuit. My question is, should this valve be closed? No fuel every came out and it ran fine back to the dock (about 10 minutes) with it open. I can try and close it later today and see if it still stumbles. Also I will fill up later today and hopefully it takes at least 40 gallons suggesting it was fuel starvation.
Any help on the nuances of this engine and bleeder procedure would be helpful. I did read the info at torrensen which is where I found out there are two different bleeder systems.
thanks
shaun (with the mast finally on the boat)
E38-200 #207
Sorcerer, Everett , WA