I have a new to me 2005 JCB 506c telehandler with 2100 hours. It was working great...then, I lent it out to a local builder who told me his crew knew how to drive them and life would be just fine. My wife saw them driving it to their job site at 5mph - they didn't even realize that it wasn't a powershift unit or realize that there was a long stick used to shift between gears...wow. Regardless, I sent a text to the builder and explained how to shift and they got going at speed. So fast forward to end of day. I get a call that the unit 'just died' on them when they were driving back. I swung over, added five gallons of diesel just in case the gauge was bad and checked all fuses. It turns over fast, but doesn't even try to start. I feel fluid movement in the spin on fuel filter and hear what sounds much like injectors buzzing key on engine off. Any other ideas? Could it be that maybe an injector pump or something got overworked while it was maybe being run at top rpm in first gear when these guys didn't know how to shift? The builder tells me that he personally drove it at the site all day without an issue. Is there a way to check codes on a machine like this?
Like any other, start with the basics, if it did run out of fuel, you're going to have to bleed it. Loosen an injector line to see if you are getting fuel first. My bet is fuel shut off solenoid or it's wiring.
Thanks for the reply! What would cause the fuel shut off solenoid to actuate? When I got there, the fuel gauge read 3/4 tank. Any idea where that solenoid is located?
It could be as simple as a fuse. I am not familiar with this specific machine, but the solenoid is probably on the inlet of the injector pump. It will have one or two wires on it. If it has one wire it should have power anytime the switch is on, if the other one is there, it has power at start to pull the solenoid in. If you crack an injector line and you have a good flow of air free fuel, it's not it.
Well, the lift is back at my place safe and sound. Thanks very much for the ideas. I still don't know what happened, though. When I went out there and added the five gallons of fuel, it still didn't start. The builder tells me that he added two more gallons of fuel today before it was full, then he hopped in, pumped the pedal a couple of times, and it started. He drove it the ten miles back to my place without incident. The tank holds 35 gallons. Any ideas? Just looking for reliability here...
Like Mitch said it could be a relay or fuel solenoid. When they get weak they will work fine when cold, but after the coil heats up its electrical resistance also goes up, and it can't generate enough pull. Cummins had a big problem the external fuel pump solenoids on B & C series engines with inline fuel pumps in the late 90's. ISZ
Interesting. Thank you. Would a weak relay or fuel solenoid cause a shut down WHILE driving and then allow a re-start the following day including use after re-start of about two hours? Any idea how these relays/fuel solenoid's get tested?
What you have here is a serious PITA. It's hard to diagnose something that ain't broke right now. :beatsme
In the case of the Cummins shut-off coils, once you got them started they didn't shut off. But I don't know anything about the JCB fueld system. If it is a weak relay a big bump might be enough to open up. Had a machine once that ran fine until one day it died while going down a hill, the driver froze and he ran over a transformer. Luckily nobody got hurt. When we diagnosed the machine we found out that the relay driving the fuel shut-off solenoid had water in it and all the parts were rusted pretty bad. Not sure what caused it to fail at that moment, but probably just to right bump. ISZ
Okay...well, it's failed again. It died while being moved, thankfully at my place, and now won't start. I have removed the fuel filter bowl and confirmed that I do not have fuel. Any ideas where this problematic solenoid is located?:Banghead
If you've got no fuel into the filter bowl that would be a different issue than a shut off solenoid. Shouldn't that be a perkins engine? I think you have some kind of intermittent restriction in the supply to the mechanical pump. I think you have a candy wrapper or something swimming around in your tank.
It is indeed a Perkins diesel. The fuel bowl was full of fuel, but when I removed the filter bowl to check on the filter itself, I opted to leave the bowl off and crank it over to see if fuel rushed into the bowl 'area'. What I got was absolutely nothing. Not a drop. There is an inlet screen on the fuel tank filler area itself, but I suppose it's possible that there is something in the tank. I'll keep looking! Any idea where the solenoid is just so that I rule that in or out?
Don't worry about the remote possibility of an electrical problem somewhere when you have no fuel staring you in the face. At least you know where to look now, between your no fuel and the tank.
Sounds like a silly question but did you take off the fuel line just past the mechanical fuel pump and try to pump fuel out? That would eliminate that at least. We had a problem similar to this over the winter and it turned out to be the bleeder screw in the side of the injection pump was stripped out and leaked ever so slightly. But before this the fuel pump was very weak, you could pump it up by hand and the machine would start and run for a minute until the fuel filter and bowl sucked dry.
I am embarrassed to admit that my lack of fuel seems to have been caused by a battery seemingly too weak to run the solenoid, but not weak enough (?) to engage the starter slowly. That seems strange to even be possible, but I noticed that my battery was weak so in the initial troubleshooting popped a jump pack on it to help out. It was then that I had no fuel, even though it was turning over strongly. While going through the options of what all was wrong, I decided to pull the battery and get it on a charger and pop in a replacement battery meanwhile. When I did so, in another test I put the key in position 'I' and heard my solenoid going and fuel gurgling. A few seconds later, fuel is coming into my fuel bowl area. Awesome! Still, though, no start when I buttoned everything back up after letting the key live in the 'I' position for the manufacturer's recommended three minutes to get all of the air out. Other info: I haven't had this machine but maybe 15 hours of use time so hadn't gotten to all the filters - only the motor oil and filter. When I dropped the fuel bowl, I noted that the maybe 10 micron screen mesh filter had a fair amount of rust particles and even some chunks in it. Not awesome. At this point, I've cleaned up this filter and put everything back together, but remain at a no-start. Fuel coming into the fuel bowl isn't at all what I would consider rapid, so I just picked up a new NAPA 3804 ( http://www.napaonline.com/Catalog/CatalogItemDetail.aspx/Fuel-Filter-Gold-/_/R-FIL3804_0324856125 ) fuel filter (which lives upstream flow wise from this maybe 1.5" tall mesh filter) tonight. I'll be popping that in first thing in the am, letting the key be in the 'I' position for ANOTHER three minutes, and hope to have joy. If the condition of the mesh filter is any indication of service history, after everything goes back together and this no-start is behind me, changing out all other fluids and filters is the next step. Any other steps I should be doing?
So you have an electric fuel pump somewhere? If the problems continues, I'd drain the tank and flush it out a couple times. Let the dirt settle in a bucket and siphon the fuel back to rinse the tank out.
Yes, the fuel pump is electric. Hopefully the issue is taken care of with the primary fuel filter change tomorrow morning. We'll see.