I finally got around to changing the air cleaner today in the 70's vintage Case 580 CK I bought a couple of weeks ago, (diesel), and what a mess. The bottom of the housing was full of a black crud, as was what was left of what I think was the element material, ( but I'm not sure that is what I was seeing). I was out at my farm, so I only had limited tools and equipment to work with. I decided to put the pre-air screen cap back onto the intake hose and just run it like that until I can get back to town and try to get a completely new housing/element. But it will not start now. I shot some starting fluid into it and it ran for a few seconds but died. Has plenty of fuel in tank, and ran fine last week. So my question is this. Do these diesel engines require the air flow restriction of the air cleaner to run? I know very little about diesel engines, so excuse my ignorance. Really do not want to put that housing back on tomm, but maybe no choice. Have 4 loads of rock coming in at 10:00 AM, and need it to be ready.Appreciate any help I can get.
Don't feel bad about not knowing much about your engine lighthousealarm, but it doesn't require any type of restriction on the air intake for the engine to run. It's just a strange coincidence that this happened when you took the air cleaner apart. It sounds like your not getting fuel to the engine. Not related to air intake. I'm not familiar with the components on your rig, just make sure your fuel filter is good, and you have good fuel flow to the injection pump. And, what type of shutdown does it have? Electric or some kind of manual fuel shutdown?