Had an odd one tonight. I have been using my John Deere 2003 310SG backhoe for about 2 years now with no issues. Even at 5pm I started it just fine, usually cranks up within a second of starting. I parked it on a slight slope pointed downhill for about 2 hours. Went back to use it for some more snow clearing and it would crank fine but no fire up. Seems I have fuel. Filled up yesterday for a full tank but no joy tonight.
Did your diesel get jelly?
No it’s not that cold. Just below freezing. And wasn’t a problem sitting for the last day.
Maybe some ice in the water separator?
Try the priming pump and a bleeder on the filter to see if it's getting fuel. If you have a stanadyne db4 pump, it has one power wire to turn on the injection pump, that could have gotten knocked loose over the years, with the key on you should be able to remove and reconnect that wire and hear a click. If you have an electronic controlled pump, I can't help.
will check that in the morning.
The odd thing is it went from being perfectly fine almost daily and even fine when I started it earlier this evening to nothing. No smoke or anything. Just cranks but doesn’t fire up or smoke or anything.
The odd thing is it went from being perfectly fine almost daily and even fine when I started it earlier this evening to nothing. No smoke or anything. Just cranks but doesn’t fire up or smoke or anything.[/QUOTE] That's usually how it always is, ran find till it didn't. Sounds like a fuel delivery issue if you are seeing no smoke on long cranking
Check fuses in the fuse panel
The pain with all of this. We just got another foot or more of wet snow and this is my road clearing machine. Not really something I can do without for a few days, and getting parts will be an adventure just getting out to the main road. ♂️
Have you drained the water separator and the fuel tank to see if there's any water? the manual will say to do it everyday or something ridiculous that nobody does, but you should check every now and then, open enough to drip until there's no more water, if you get water, do it every time you run it until you don't get anymore water. If it ran fine then didn't start, ice is the most likely thing that would block fuel flow like that. Let us know what you find.
That backhoe has an ECM so this could be computer related.
It reminds me of my old Massey. If I leave the stop lever open it will crank with no smoke. I doubt it is frozen fuel as it’s not much below freezing and when I had gone to start it the engine was still warm from the previous operations. What creates the stop fuel delivery to shut off the engine? Can it get stuck?
No electrical power for one. Did you check all the fuses in the panel and any near the battery and/or the injector pump?
I’m doubtful as no codes or such and we had a just about to go back out in the daylight to trace the fuel. I was working in the dark getting buried with snow. Almost a foot of snow overnight but now it’s stopped. I also wondered if it was something from being parked bucket downhill.
Typically, you'll only get codes if it starts and something is not right. If it won't start you usually don't get a code, if the ECM isn't getting power, it won't throw a code. I don't know years and cut offs, just a search showed two different pumps for an SG. Another thing that could do this, somewhat related to parking downhill, would be a loose wiring harness connector.
Could be a plugged fuel strainer in the tank. You have to remove the sending unit with the lines on it. The strainer comes out with it.
So it seems sitting overnight whatever was the issue resolved itself. tech from Brandt figured electrical, so I’m going to do some connector maintenance and clean up the pins and such.
Verify that ECM is getting a good ground.
Not necessarily. Depends on the S/N.
Rare as a pink unicorn?
Easy to tell by looking at the injection pump. If it did it once, it will probably do it again, and you might as well know what to look for next time.
I would start out making sure you have fuel all the way to the injection pump. Use the primer pump on the side of the engine. Checking for water in the fuel. If you have fuel at the pump then crack a fitting on an injector at the valve cover and crank the engine over to see if fuel comes out at the injector. If no fuel comes out then check the fuses on the cowling in front the steering wheel, you could do that first! If you have no fuel, at the injector, or smoke out the exhaust when cranking the engine then it gets tough. Check harnesses, make sure diesel is not dripping on the ECU which has been know to kill them. The bad news is the ECU can just quit like that, I’ve had several do that in the past. There is no easy solution if it’s the ECU. You can have JD come out to diagnose it or take the tractor to the dealer or after checking all the easy stuff just take the ECU out and go to the dealer to have him reprogram a new one. Just for future reference my 310SG quit starting the other day while working it. I checked the fuses, no problem there, then noticed the big black relay next to the fuses wasn’t clunking when turning on the key, so I replaced both the ignition switch and the relay and stars great again! That relay is a 100% duty cycle so use OEM, I’ve tried others and had them melt. The key switch can build up resistance and not give enough juice to activate the relay properly.
One thing I have found is the fuel vent in the fuel cap tends to plug up and the tank won’t vent causing a vacuum in the tank. If this happens you will notice sickroom went taking the fuel cap off.