3184 loosing fuel prime

[ghutson]

tractor has to crank for a while after it sets more than a couple days, I put a fuel valve in line before fuel pump . Didn't seem to make a difference. Can hit it with some starting fluid and it fires right up, but it takes a couple squirts to keep it running till it picks up fuel. It takes a couple days setting before I have to start it like that. One piece of information, if I fill the take up it leaks fuel from somewhere but doesn't seem to effect how it starts. As long as you start it every day it runs fine. Where to look ?

 

[mgonitzke]

Sounds like the fuel pump is getting weak.

 

[Piginabag]

I have been having this EXACT problem! I didn’t figure it out until I tried to gently blow out the fuel line: I heard a quiet “pop”, and 5 gallons of gas dumped out onto the ground! Well, I caught most of it in a bucket.

It turns out that, though the fuel lines looked fine, the inner layer had turned to gook and separated from the fabric and outer layer. Presumably from the ethanol gasoline.

It seems like once it was running and a flow was started, it could pull enough fuel through to run. But when it had been sitting, the suction of the fuel pump on the softened, delaminated hose made it do what soft suction hoses always do: collapse and block flow.

The “pop” I heard, and what leaked all the gas in a matter of seconds, is that the grommets in the bottom of the fuel tank - that hold the petcocks - has also dissolved in the ethanol; that’s what blew out when I put a little pressure on the system.

Cheap, simple solution to something that’s been driving me nuts for weeks. Lessons: don’t replace a fuel pump and rebuild a carburetor before you replace $5 worth of fuel lines. And if they have E10 in your state, seek out a source of non-ethanol “off road” gasoline!

 

[dropte]

Ethanol is horrible on fuel systems. I never run it if I can avoid it. What you gain in gov't subsidized fuel savings, you pay for in parts and decreased economy.

I tend to run no-ethanol premium in all my small engines, not because it performs any better in them (probably worse in some ways), but it will be stable longer and do far less damage in a lot of my engines that run pretty infrequently.

 

[ghutson]

Piginabag, dropte
Thanks for the input, That's will be the first place to start. It makes sense to look at the easiest and simple solution. Eliminate that first.