I ran out of fuel

Hi markr, welcome.

Just so you know, you're not the first to do that, and definitely not the last so welcome to the club. What's crazy is when someone runs out of fuel on a full tank – these are usually the folks that don't take preventive care of their fuel supply by testing for water and treating with a biocide when necessary.

To your question. Slightly loosen the secondary fuel filter and operate the lift (priming) pump. When non-aerated fuel flows from the filter, tighten it. You may also slightly loosen the fuel line nuts at the injectors and operate the lift pump but you may or may not get any fuel there because of the positioning of the individual injection pumps on the cam.

Yes, that's the priming pump, but the knob and shaft are not supposed to be unscrewed from the piston/seal assembly like that.  It should unlock and pop up with just a half  turn or so (as I recall) and then you pump it.  You need to screw it back into the piston and pull it up, I would think.  You may have to use a longer bolt with the same metric thread to get the piston up if it is down too far for the knob shaft to reach.

By the way, I hope you cleaned all that dirt and fung off the pump assembly before you unscrewed that shaft.  Otherwise you could have bits of that crud falling into the lift pump, not a good thing.

while you are out of fuel it would be a good time to check your screens and filters,look in the fuel  tank  for trash.cause you know anything that was in there for years gets sucked into places where filters are when you run out of fuel.

How in the heck were you able to uscrew the shaft off the plunger piston??

Now you 'll have to remove the barrel from the lift pump and re-attach the plunger, because I don't think you will be able to get it to pump as it is now.

I do not know if you can use it but I have 3 tractors 20 hp dong feng,50 hp foton,92 hp jcb 214  and I use wix 3195 in them all.with that said just use this as a place to start looking.

If that is your secondary fuel filter in the upper right corner, it is a cannister element type, not a spin-on. Take it to NAPA or any competent auto supply store and they should be able to match it up. Same for a spin-on. I think David has provided the correct number for the spin-on element.

By now you have probably discovered that you can unscrew the barrel from the lift pump and discovered a circlip laying in the bottom.

I don’t think the primer part of the lift pump is sold seperately, you’ll have to purchase a complete lift pump assembly for about $35.00 from one of the supporting dealers of this site, Affordable, Circle-G, Keno, etc.

Your original post said nothing about bleeding the fuel system without the primer. However, you can purchase an electric fuel pump from an auto supply store that’s designed for use with diesel fuel for about $40.00 and use that for priming.

So if the piston is corroded solid in the bore, that's a sure sign you have water in your fuel and a bad case of diesel bugs to boot.

Good luck.

Look at your fuel bowl ( thats why it is clear) and empty the spin on filter in a jar let it sit for awhile look for water,that primer might have been frozen for a while.if you see water make sure you git rid of it before you trap more in new parts.my neighbor has a mf 461 with a electric pump and it is self priming when you change the fuel filter,just turn on the key listen to the pump when it has the air out the pump settles down then start.but mechanical pumps are simple,and I like simple.

back to the priming ,once you get the pump back together is the fuel tank much higher than the pump ,maybe you can let gravity do its thing when you crack the banjo fitting. I have seen it done with 3 to 5 lbs of air pressure in the fill neck of the fuel tank.Then turn the engine over and crack the injector lines to let the air out.It is easier with 2 people.Try to be easy on the starter,keep the cranking time to a minium,easier said than done.good luck

If you're going to crank the engine to bleed the injectors, pull the compression release and clamp it open.  It will save your battery and make the engine spin faster, too.

Hi fellas, Just throwing in a couple cents worth of info. Been around diesels most of my life and some of them can be a bear to get going when the pump goes dry. We had a 3208 Cat once that when you ran out of fuel, the only way we could get it started after the pump was charged, was to loosen/crack all the injector fittings, crank the engine until fuel started to come out a couple fittings. I mean just crack the fittings no more than a quarter of a turn, when the fuel starts to flow, start closing the fittings, the engine should fire. after all are closed and a miss is detected, go back over the fittings again one at a time while the engine is running to make sure all air is out and the miss should go away. Sorry for butting in, just thought I'd throw that your way. PJ 

Glad you got it going Mark.