How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

[skipjack27]

In another thread, I recounted an episode in which my 1987 Volvo Penta AQADP41A died very suddenly in a sharp turn to port at speed. We believe that the quarter-full tank sloshed over to port and exposed the fuel intake (on the starboard side of the tank) to air. After a lot of cranking over, and fast and furious work by a mechanic on board (we were on a sea-trial to check some new work), the engine restarted and ran like a top thereafter.

My question is this: what do I do if this happens again (and I don't have a mechanic on board)? What is the appropriate way to deal with an engine that has sucked air into the fuel lines? How do you "burp" it out?

Is it simply a matter of cranking her over until the fuel flows through again?

Regards

Jeff

 

[RepoMan207]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

In another thread, I recounted an episode in which my 1987 Volvo Penta AQADP41A died very suddenly in a sharp turn to port at speed. We believe that the quarter-full tank sloshed over to port and exposed the fuel intake (on the starboard side of the tank) to air. After a lot of cranking over, and fast and furious work by a mechanic on board (we were on a sea-trial to check some new work), the engine restarted and ran like a top thereafter.

My question is this: what do I do if this happens again (and I don't have a mechanic on board)? What is the appropriate way to deal with an engine that has sucked air into the fuel lines? How do you "burp" it out?

Is it simply a matter of cranking her over until the fuel flows through again?

Regards

Jeff

I have a hard to believing that a simple sloshing would of caused you to die out.....unless you were doing figure 8's at high rate of speed lol. Seriously though, Something that minimal would not effect the motor at all, if anything it would be more of a slight hesitation then it would recover on it's own. I haven't checked your thread out, but I would suspect a dirty or contaminated filter would be more of a culprit. Glad to hear it got straighted out though.

To answer your question, I would think it would be the same procedure as a big truck, make sure the filter is full with fuel, crack an intake line and keep cranking the ignition until she either fires or the battery goes dead. I

 

[skipjack27]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

Thanks for those observations, Ryan.

I find it hard to believe that the filter could be at fault. This should have been checked at the last engine service, which was only 5 months ago. Furthermore, we have been using the boat quite a bit since we bought her around 8 months ago, and have never once encountered any problem remotely like this.

What made this situation very different was that we finally resolved a serious overheating problem that had always limited our speed to around 8 knots or so (you can read the saga, if you wish, on another thread here under my username). This was the very first time we had got up to 21 knots. There are a couple of other things to note:

- I held her in a fairly hard turn at speed for as much as a couple of minutes and she leaned quite markedly throughout that turn

- the long axis of the rectangular fuel tank is aligned across the beam of the boat, and so this would exaggerate the pooling of limited fuel at one end when the boat leans over. Since the intake is at the starboard end of the fuel tank, and I was turning to port, it's inevitable that there would be a significant movement of fuel away from the intake.

- what bugs me in particular is that the fuel setup may be wrong. The previous owners installed a new tank a couple of years ago, but would never have tested it under high speed conditions (an old retired couple, they apparently just endured the overheating problem and went everywhere at only 8 knots). I know nothing about fuel tanks and their design, but wonder whether there are systems or practices that exist to stop the kind of fuel starvation problem I'm assuming we suffered the first time the boat was run at high speed in several years.

Regards

Jeff

 

[EddiePetty]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

Thanks for those observations, Ryan.

....... Since the intake is at the starboard end of the fuel tank, and I was turning to port, it's inevitable that there would be a significant movement of fuel away from the intake.......



Jeff

...wanna try that again ???

Ed

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

crack an intake line

Um, you mean "crack" an injector line right?

Have a rag handy to wipe up the spilled fuel!

- the long axis of the rectangular fuel tank is aligned across the beam of the boat, and so this would exaggerate the pooling of limited fuel at one end when the boat leans over. Since the intake is at the starboard end of the fuel tank, and I was turning to port, it's inevitable that there would be a significant movement of fuel away from the intake.

Jeff,

I thought we did speak to that in the other thread a bit......

In smooth water, try placing a small bowl of water about half full (half empty?) on the deck (or anywhere for that matter) and do a couple of turns left and right and see if the water stays more or less level in the bowl. The boat banks like an airplane.....it should be enough to prevent or reduce pulling the liquid to one side or another.


Cheers,


Rick

 

[carbineone]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

Making sure the filter is full and cracking the injector lines will work but you may have to crank quite a bit to get it going again.I work on Bobcat Skidloaders quite a bit and some of the diesel powered ones have a priming bulb on them like on a boat fuel tank.If you have problems and cannot figure out why it is losing the prime putting a primer bulb on it may be a option for you to atleast get it going again fairly easily if it happens.Do not do it like my brother does with his Ford Powerjoke diesel.He just sprays massive amounts of ether till it goes.I cannot believe he gets by with this but has done it for several years to get that Ford going.

It may be that you have a line before the pump that has a leak and is sucking in air maybe or a pump problem.

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

Um, unless you want to kill that diesel......(and possibly blow it up in your face, ) stay away from ether.....

Using it in any diesel (except maybe a 2-stroke GMC 53/71/92 series engine) is very bad......ESPECIALLY in any diesel that has glowplugs or induction heaters!

 

[carbineone]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

HT32,yes I said DO NOT do what my brother does.If you watched him spray this untimed massive amounts of ether in that thing you would be amazed it stays together.I always stand far away when he does this...I tell him not to do it but he does not listen....Maybe you read my post and thought I was telling him to use ether.No problem though...Thanks

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

Do not do it like my brother does with his Ford Powerjoke diesel

You're so right!! Sorry about that......


RTFQ!!

We're all guilty of that from the time to time aren't we?

I have used ether on a "glow-plug" engine in the past.....I disconnected the glow plug relay before I did it though. The engine was a IDT 6.9L Corn Binder ford engine.

Sounded SO BAD that I never did it again!!


Cheers,


Rick

 

[Don S]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

To bleed the air out of a Volvo 41, and save that expensive starter, do this.
You need to have plenty of rags to catch the diesel fuel as you bleed it.
1. Bleed the engine fuel filter. There is a bleed screw (10mm wrench) on top of the filter housing. Open it and pump the handle on the lift pump till you get solid fuel out of the bleed screw.

After you get the air out, close the bleed screw and tighten securely.
Now, loosen all of the injector lines at the injectors. Keep pumping till you get solid fuel out of 1 or 2 injectors. tighten them down, Then turn the engine a bit and pump some more. Do this till you get at least 4 injectors working. Then crank the engine over a few turns till the others start squirting fuel. Should only take a few cranks.
Once all are bled out, start the engine.

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

The pump above is the "lift" pump........pretty handy having a manual handle to prime with!!

 

[skipjack27]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

DON S: this is extremely useful. I very deeply appreciate this set of instructions. They are going to be appropriately headed, printed out, laminated, and distributed to home and boat.

RICK: thanks for this reply, because I now realise that I didn't properly understand your email in the other thread about overheating. I do now. I'll do what you suggest when we next take her out.

Cheers

Jeff

 

[triman]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

Getting back to the possibility of the fuel pickup clearing the top of the fuel during a hard turn, try to track down the tankmaker through the bloke who sold you the boat and see if they installed baffles during the tank building.
It shouldn't be possible to suck air during a tunr, and having the long axis of the tank along the centreline, rather than athwartships would be preferable and far more conventional.

 

[skipjack27]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

Smart advice, Triman. No baffles would explain a lot...

I suspect, unfortunately, that I will have trouble tracking down who installed the tank and whether they included baffles. But I'm going to try. Failing that, I might try poking some wires down the tank inlet to see if they are baulked by something that feels like a baffle.

The previous owners, who were an old couple and very non-technical, could well have been taken for a ride by the tank supplier.

I find your comment about the long axis of the tank being conventionally situated fore and aft along the centreline very interesting. This is obviously the way to do it. Perhaps that was the way it was done when the boat was built. Which, again, leads one to suspect that the previous owners were duped by an unscrupulous supplier who, perhaps, decided they could sell them a bigger and more expensive tank if it was aligned athwartships.

I'll let you know what I find out.

Regards

Jeff

 

[cr2k]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

I don't see how the turn could have done that...

You stated the fuel pick up is in the starboard side of the tank, and making a turn to port it died.

Think about it....
When you turn to port the fuel will slosh to starboard (centrifugal force and all that) which should enhance the effective depth of the fuel pick up.

But the answer is you need to bleed out the fuel injectors. If you have an electrical fuel pump all the easier, other wise crack and crank.

 

[skipjack27]

Re: How to restart a diesel that ran out of fuel?

Interesting comment, CR2K. And in somewhat the same vein as that made by HT32BSX115.

I should note, first of all, that I've made a much more careful dipstick estimate of the amount of fuel in the tank since the incident itself. It appears that there was quite a lot less fuel in the tank than appeared to be the case. I can only assume that we were tossing around in the waves quite a bit at the time and that the dipstick - while showing around a quarter tank - was actually over-reading by quite a considerable amount. The fuel tank is something like 18" high, and I now doubt that we had much more than an inch or two of fuel (in my defense, I would note that I had deliberately refrained from having much in the tank in order to ease the strain on the boat during the slipping exercise).

The kind of dynamics about which the two respondents above speculate is clearly much dependent on the actual level of the tank - but also upon the rate of turn, speed of the boat, length of the fuel tank in the athwarthips axis, position of the intakes in relation to the bottom of the tank, etc.

All this is essentially impossible to quantify in relation to the one-off incident I described. But in the light of the newer measurements of the tank contents, I am pretty happy to sign off on the explanation that fuel starvation occurred because of very low tank contents draining away from the fuel intake line during a long (minute or two), left-leaning, hi-speed turn.

If I conk in the middle of the ocean one day, I'll come back and apologise for my simplicity. In the meantime, many thanks for the insightful and stimulating commentary.

Cheers

Jeff