N/A diesel will not start

[mat_fenwick]

even though he'd checked the stop solenoid it turned out to be the issue in the end so might have to swap it over and give it a go again.

If you've removed the plunger there is nothing the stop solenoid can do to stop fuel flowing...UNLESS the little rubber bit on the end has separated from the plunger and is still stopping the fuel flow.

The other point about using a fresh tank - is that still relying on the pump to draw fuel up from it, or is it a gravity feed. If you have a small air leak on one of the pump seals, or even leak off pipes, it may not be able to prime itself (although would have thought manual priming would have done the job). On a vehicle without a manual primer I once had to rig up a temporary gravity fed tank (from a lawnmower) in order to prime the pump.

[Geoffrey Gould]

Hello, I do remember some time ago the case where a small sliver of 'rubber' had broken off the stop solenoid plunger and plugged the hole, that stopped it. Fished it out with a needle with the end bent into a hook shape, sorted.
G.

[citronut]

if fuel comes out of the return pipes when pumping the primmer then i would say its got to either be glogged up in the pump with Bio or its still something to do with the shut off solenoid,

check to see if Bio has solidified under the shut off solenoid plunger

regards malcolm

[Brian]

If all else fails to locate the fault...

Remove the diesel feed pipe from the filter end, blow down and listen for bubbles in the tank.
If you do not like using your mouth, any air pump bicycle, foot type etc

It is not unusual for the gloop produced using bio to block the tank filter gauze..

Good luck.

[MULLEY]

It could be fungus inside the fuel tank & or blocked tank filter, get the back seat up (driver side), underneath some wadding there should be a plastic disc, prise this off & then there is a another circular plug which has some nodules/recesses on the edge, i use a flat blade screwdriver in those recesses to move it around so that it unscrews. You'll need to take the rubber fuel pipes off (if your tank is emptyish then hopefully not that much fuel with spill out, but have some rags just incase. Once they've stopped leaking fuel, you can then remove the internal filter to see if its clogged up, if so clean with petrol & replace. Also worth getting a torch down into the tank to see whether there is fungus/crud in the fuel that you can see. If there is you'll have to drain the tank out to get it clean.

When i did my tank filter, i found that bio-diesel had become gloopy & that the filter had been covered by a sticky golden mess which was blocking the fuel from being delivered to the engine, hence the car was running very rough & intermittent & would cut out along with being desperatly slow due to fuel starvation Sorted once i'd cleaned the tank & filter
Good luck.

[sdelasal]

In your first post, you said 'ongoing issue of poor running due to dodgy fuel in the tank and emulsified biodiesel' - I know the temperatures here have dropped quite noticeably, and I'm wondering if there was something in the fuel actually in your pump that has turned to goop/wax and so blocking the thing. In that case, you need to get heat into the pump and get its internals up to say 10-20'C. So this idea may sound a big desperate - perhaps one to try before you pull the injection pump - but what you could do is heat up some diesel fuel to say 40'C & run a line into the pump through the primer bulb and divert the return back to your hot diesel. Then get some hot fuel circulating around the pump with the primer pump - so as to heat up the pump & hopefully melt whatever is causing the problem. A lot of hassle and maybe messy too. A Simpler way may be to run boiling water over the pump, hug it for hours or wrap it in an electric blanket. I've never tried this of course!! Steve

[BX-pert]

DO NOT EVER spray anything inflammable down the intake! Easy Start, petrol etc....You run the risk of bending the con rods because of the high compression ratios in diesel engines.

[Defender110]

DO NOT EVER spray anything inflammable down the intake! Easy Start, petrol etc....You run the risk of bending the con rods because of the high compression ratios in diesel engines.

Quite the opposite, because of the high compression of a diesel engine they have stronger conrods etc. to cope with the higher compressions.

[Geoffrey Gould]

Hi, yes but easy-start etc. gawd doesn't it make them knock and crackle it's the sound that makes you think that something is going to break.Constantly used it does not do them any good at all, but having said that the engines that require it repeatedly are usually f***ed anyway.
G.

[BX-pert]

Carry on squirting then 'Defender110'.
I like people like you, because you keep people like me in work. ;o)

[Defender110]

I'm not condoning the use of easy start just your definite statement it will bend the conrods in a diesel engine. I've been a professional Diesel fitter / fleet engineer for 34 years now including being a specialist Volvo and Caterpillar engine rebuilder for several years and have rebuilt literally hundreds of diesel engines but never once yet seen a diesel conrod bent from starter cranking with easy start, the piston rings would give way before the conrod. Many diesel engines used to have a start pilot system fitted on them by the manufacturers to get them started in cold weather situations which was basically a manual primer pump for easy start liquid instead of an arosol which has become redundant since the introduction of efficient heater/glow plugs.
As for your latest statement "people like me"; quite bizare!