I have a 2010 Caterpillar 252B3. Last week my skid steer ran out of gas when it was -20*. I refilled machine and tried starting it for several days. I eventually realized the reason it would not start again was a priming pump was tripping fuse. I replaced priming pump and it now starts but now it does not have full power. It seems to idle ok and after idle for several minutes it will have full power for a short while, then back to loss of power. I took it into cat dealer and they tested oil and found a trace of water and wanted to pull heads off and replace head gasket for $3500. I told them no because I feel this is a fuel issue and the oil is black and no oil in coolant. Anyway I am planning on draining fuel system, replace fuel filter again (second time since issue started), and testing pumps. My thought is since fuel ran empty, maybe it sucked sediment into fuel pump and when fuse was tripping the contaminated fuel was still in pump when I replaced filter the first time and once I replaced fuse it may have clogged filter enough to starve engine of fuel??? If I let it idle again for 5 minutes I get full power back for 1 minute before it loses power again. White smoke comes out when it's in power loss stage. No smoke on idle. Any thoughts before I tear into this on Monday morning. Also not sure why prime pump shorted.
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