Firstly, this is not a thread about how bad the 3208 engine is. I am having trouble with a 3208 32Y in a Ford LN8000 tipper. It runs fine and has normal power at any speed above around 1000rpm. However at idle speeds it lacks power and sometimes stalls. In the past it would tip a full load at idle, but now it will stall. It also now needs an increase in revs when starting off in first gear with a load on, whereas before you could take off with the engine idling without a problem. It also will sometimes stall when you have been driving at medium engine revs and quickly take your foot off the accelerator to come to a stop. It has had a new fuel filter. All the fuel line fittings are tight. It has had a new seal on the governor arm shaft of the injector pump when it was leaking recently which fixed the leak. There are no leaks anywhere else. I have a workshop manual, but it is the industrial 3208 engine, not the truck engine version, so I am not sure if it is the same. In the workshop manual (see attached scan) it says to "clean the fuel screen located in the inlet valve of the fuel transfer pump" Does the 3208 truck engine have a fuel screen? If it does, I doubt if it has ever been cleaned, so where is it? The workshop manual also suggest low fuel pressure to be a cause of this problem. It lists the fuel pressure at 30psi +/- 5psi at full load speed. Where do you measure the fuel pressure? How are you supposed to measure the fuel pressure at full load? What should the fuel pressure be at idle? Anyone had a similar problem?
I have an '82 Ford with a 3208 so your post caught my eye. Only thing I can offer is: I don't think it would be a screen/restriction as that would limit power at higher speeds (needs more fuel). (also, not sure if or where that screen you mentioned is...or if mine has one). Did this start after fixing the seal on the governor? Seems like that might be the cause... Good luck, Darryl
One thing you should do for sure is pull that shut down solenoid off. There's a plate that turns a shaft inside there. Don't worry, nothing will come unwound, the spool of the shut down solenoid pushes against the plate. More than once I've seen moisture get in that chamber and make the shaft sticky so when the solenoid spool pulls in you're not getting full fuel delivery. Make sure that shaft turns freely.
I don't know inside the injection system on these, but that sounds like whatever part of the governor that controls idle is stuck at one position, and not responding to changes in speed. The curious thing about this situation is that the 3208 is a variable speed governor, as far as the advertisements said, and so the problem should be apparent at all speeds and not just idle, unless the idle portion of the governor is separate. (Variable speed means the governor is like a tractor engine where each throttle position equates to a certain RPM and the governor tries to maintain that speed. Most trucks have a hi-lo governor that controls fuel directly like a car throttle pedal.)
I think you've noted one of the main differences between truck engines and industrial engines Birken Vogt, truck engines typically don't have variable speed governor whereas industrial engines may have that feature.
Yair . . . . That's as I understand it Willie59 , I think I noted it in another thread where a board member was considering building a genset from a mower diesel engine. Cheers.
Thanks for the replies, The problem was occurring a while before the governor arm seal was replaced. When the seal started leaking I was actually hoping that fixing the leak would solve the problem, but it didn't.