I'm trying to help my father diagnose his John Deere 5045e tractor (over the phone, he's in AZ), looking for some suggestions on what to try next. Tractor is the tier 2 version, somewhere around 2010 vintage, has a little under 5000hrs on it and he's owned it since new. Tractor has had proper maintenance since new, but he did get into a problem with some dirty fuel in one of his on farm tanks. Tractor starts and runs fine, works good at any rpm until about 20min or so of run time. I'm not sure if it is temperature related, fuel flow related or what, but the symptoms sure sound like an intermittent fuel starvation problem to me. So far they have: -Drained fuel tank and washed it out with a hot water power washer (said there was a good bit of sediment/sludge in the tank). -Cleaned the fuel strainer in the tank. -blown out the fuel lines from the tank to the filter, filter to the injection pump (no lift pump, gravity feed) -new fuel filter -blown out the return lines from the injection pump back to the tank I don't think there is a check ball in the return line like on the old Roosa Master pumps, but I'm having him check that next. Other thought, and this might be far fetched, is that it could have something to do with the cold start enrichment system. I'm not fully sure how it works, but Its either altering the timing of the pump or the fuel flow based on the temperature of the coolant. This was done for emissions reasons, for easier startup and cleaner running or so I think. Does anyone have a good explanation on how that system works and how to check if its working properly? Any other ideas are welcome as well. Thanks.
Did he check for inline fuel filter located under tractor?
How is everything going?
No promises, but if you can provide a machine serial number, I'll see if I can dig up a theory on the fuel system.
I’ll ask him, but I think the only filters are the in tank screen and the main filter. Will do, thanks
S/N: PY5045E001055 Today he checked the fuel return line, good flow out it when the engine is running so probably not a fuel return issue. Also checked running with fuel cap off, didn't seem to make a difference. Also I was mistaken, tractor only has 3900hrs on it, not that that really matters. Next thing we are going to try is pouring cool water over the injection pump when it gets hot/dies to see if we may be dealing with a worn pump. If it isn't somehow fuel related I'm at a bit of a loss, running out of things to check.
White smoke is unburned fuel. On a running engine after 20 minutes to see white smoke would, to me, be a timing change or an over fuel issue. A lack of intake air somehow? It’s a strange problem. I have had some fuel injectors start to fail when they got hot…..they would get sticky for no better word. Since there was known contamination when this started, have the injectors been checked? Even a small amount of debris in a tip can effect the atomization of the fuel and cause an uneven burn.
He says it is now blowing black smoke when it starts to happen. Just checked the injection pump with cool water, made no difference. Injectors could be a possibility, about the last thing fuel related I can think of. Maybe turbo failure? IDK
Don't sound like filter problem I have a JD5425 that has inline filter, only reason I mentioned it.
Sorry, I do not have the material for this to supply theory on the fuel system.
Isthis one with the timing advance on the pump for starting. Could be getting stuck on or is stuck intenally in the pump
Yes, I'm trying to figure out how to diagnose/bypass that system.
Just unplug the solinoid on the pump. Theres a temp sensor that applys power to it when cold to aid in starting. But it could also have a internal problem that this will not override
Told him to try that next, I wasn't sure if it needed to be unplugged or have power applied to it to defeat it, but we'll try unplugging it first.
On a side note, I HATE that google AI response that always comes at the top of a search now, I wish I could disable it. When you start googling specific technical questions the AI answers are often nonsensical, wrong, or sometimes downright dangerous....
Tried unplugging the plug on the start advance solenoid, no change. I think we're going to have to throw in the towel on this one and take it to the dealer, I'm guessing the fix won't be cheap. I'll update this thread with the results when its fixed, thanks for everyones replies.
Ok so this is one I did not expect, water pump was bad. Tractor was getting hot and running erratically as such, sensor for the water temp gauge was at the top of the radiator so it never read hot on the gauge. Sensor for the fuel enrichment was in the block which was hot, so it 'may' have been adjusting the timing when it shouldn't have, or it was just running bad from overheating. Dealer says no other damage seemed to have been done, and ran the tractor for some time without trouble. Dad was going to pick it up sometime this week, we'll see when he gets it back if this was indeed the fix.
I never heard of that before, but it makes sense.. U don’t suppose he was blowing smoke up your wazoo.??
When I think "how stupid can Deere be" I find they take it as a challenge.
My father no, dealer hopefully not but we'll soon find out. I'm verifying all of this info third hand over the phone, but next time I'm out there I'll check everything over. It is possible that the temp gauge just isn't working, those years had a bad tendency of faulty gauge clusters, he replaced the entire cluster a least once in the past 10yrs.
Ok so I'm out here in AZ helping on the ranch for the week, finally getting a chance to look at this in person. The new water pump and thermostat that JD installed did not fix the problem. Same symptoms as before, runs great for a while, then starts running bad when warm, also temp gauge does not work. Seems to be burning coolant as well, level is dropping and it's not going in the oil, not leaking externally. Suspecting bad head gasket or cracked head. I'll dig in a little deeper this week, but I'm working with limited tools out here, don't have my cooling sys pressure test kit, IR thermometer, etc. Any other ideas to check?
And in this case that's the needed tool, this is where Harbor Freight comes in handy. Install tester and see if it builds any unwanted pressure. White smoke can be coolant also. The fact it runs 20 minutes or so then has issues could very well relate to a hair line crack in head or leaking gasket from expansion-which you already know. But years ago I rebuilt allot of JD heads, now these were from a earlier design and were high engine hours, but we ran onto several that wouldn't pass a mag test. I'm sure you will find it being there to lay your own eyes and ears on it. Good luck.
Got a pressure tester and IR gun at HF, I *think* we have a blown head gasket or crack somewhere, but I'm going to double check everything tomorrow. -Tractor cold, pressure test held 14psi for 20min with no drop. -worked tractor till it started missing/blowing smoke, radiator/block temp was around 160* according to IR gun, so it was not overheating. -there didn't seem to be any pressure in the radiator when I removed cap when hot -Tested cooling system when hot, dropped 3psi from 14-11psi in 25min -seems to have used a quart of coolant over about 2 days of intermittent work All points to internal leak/crack when hot, only thing that has me a bit perplexed is the white smoke has a definite diesel smell like unburned fuel, not sweet smell like antifreeze.
Do a test with {Block Tester 600 fluid.
I'm back in Va now, but Dad is going to pick up the combustion gas tester and BT600 fluid tomorrow and check it. Ran it a good bit, coolant hasn't dropped any more, and it definitely isn't overheating when it starts acting up, if anything it's running a bit cold (145-160*) despite the ambient air temperature being around 95*. The white smoke sure smells like unburned fuel, IDK might be multiple problems we are dealing with. Its a real head scratcher so far....
Also when it started acting up I cooled the injection pump down with a good amount of cool water, brought it down from 130* to 80*, no change in symptoms. If it is fuel related, might look towards the injectors next as vetech mentioned. Need to determine the status of the headgasket/head/block before anything else though.
I don't know the fuel system on a 5045e so this might not be relevant. A few years ago I had a customer with a fleet of 5093en tractors that had similar symptoms. I never could reproduce them, but they claimed the tractors would randomly lose power and start smoking badly then it would go back to normal. According to JD's DTAC there was a low load timing advance system built into the pump and bad fuel had galled the actuator/piston/I cant remember exactly and it was sticking intermittently. A new injection pump fixed the problem. If I remember correctly these were Stanadyne DB2 pumps.
Ok thanks for that bit of info. If the cooling system checks out we're going to look at the fuel system again. It definitely had some bad fuel in it, so injector pump and/or injectors could still be the problem.
Tested the cooling system with a combustion gas tester, both hot and cold, and came back negative. Also tractor has not used any more coolant. I think we are going to assume the cooling system, head, head gasket are ok and turn our attention back to the fuel system. Cracked each injector open (well the first two, #3 is very hard to reach) when the tractor was acting up, #1 injector slowed the engine a little, #2 slowed it considerably. That tells me that the injectors aren't all acting the same. With almost 5000hrs on them and dirty fuel it might be time for a new set. Could still also be the advance in the pump, or both. I think we'll try the injectors first.
Dump a couple quarts of ATF in fuel tank, it just might clean out deposits in injectors before removing them.
We'll give it a try. I might also try it on the LT9000, also although I'm pretty sure those are injectors are just worn out. On that what would you dose 80gal of fuel at? 2gal of ATF?
Half gallon at a time, remember it will turn the fuel red. It doesn't hurt to fill a filter a third full with atf then top it off with diesel.
Right, the thought of red fuel crossed my mind, might try the filter.