injpumpEd wrote: I just re-read and saw where injectors were removed and "cleaned", so not sure what all that involved, was it done by a competent shop? Did they test them after to make sure they worked? They clean the carbon off the end only? took apart to properly clean? Did they wire wheel the ends, ruining the nozzle tip? Lots of questions lol!

Update:

We finally got warm enough weather for my friend to venture back out and take another stab at getting his little Ford to make noise.

Long story short: he did just about everything imaginable that was wrong to those injectors; wire brushed, took them completely apart, and tightened the adjusting nut inside all the way down tight. Apparently this raises the pressure required to fire the injector above the level that the pump can produce.

Lacking any proper test equipment (not to mention knowledge) I took a wild guess that just maybe the appropriate adjustment would be somewhere around the mid-point of the spring compression, I backed off the adjustment screw all the way out, then turned it in until it just contacted the spring, then counted the number of turns required to bottom out the adjustment (five full turns). I then backed it out two and a half turns, and repeated this on the remaining injectors.

Lo and behold, it actually started and ran!

It did require a bit of cranking along with some starting fluid, and as I was driving home and ponderizing on this I thought that perhaps backing the screw out another half-turn might allow those injectors to fire more readily at cranking speeds. I called him after I got home and suggested this, which he agreed to try since he doesn't have it buttoned up yet.

Obviously, the 'proper' thing would be to take the injectors to a professional shop and have them done up right, but since my friend is afflicted with the same impecunious condition as I it seems unlikely that this will happen any time soon.

Thanks for the help!

Codger wrote: I'd get those injectors out of that engine and into a fuel shop before the engine either burns down, or washes itself clean. These are rather precision in nature and spray pattern, and crack pressure are very important. Using anything besides a nylon, or soft brass bristled brush on the tips, oh boy.....

Agreed.

Last winter he was asking how much it would be worth as scrap metal and I told him maybe $200 (without looking up current prices). He would have sold it to me right then for that price but I managed to talk him into giving it another chance.

Yesterday he asked how much it would cost to overhaul the engine (it's pretty tired). I told him a minimum of $2000; he said he didn't have that much to spend.

tbran wrote: Whether a Roosa or a CAV when pumps wear in the head they start having issues popping the injectors at cranking speed.  We have had tractors or combines that would not start when hot and customers would pour water on the head of the pump and they would crank. That is how critical the fit of the pumping pistons to the bore is. Lowering the pressures to allow them to pop at what level the pump will produce is a stop gap to what will be more problematic issues depending on the hour usage. There is a great danger not knowing the pressure of the injectors. Also on a rotary pump unequal pressure can lead to unequal loading of fuel to cylinders. Don't run it much til addressed. Definitely don't load /work it.  As the saying goes - do you feel lucky ?

Thank you for the explanation. I think this tractor already has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

He already spent $500 having the pump 'rebuilt' and the rebuilder told him that it was getting weak but should run ok in warm weather (dunno how that qualifies as being rebuilt, but that's what he said). At minimum it still needs a set of new or rebuilt injectors. He hasn't looked into that yet as far as cost/availability.

Jordan(OH) wrote: Probably about a $2000 tractor in Ohio before he messed with it, don’t know about Idaho.

He put a brand-new radiator in it and a bunch of steering components (cylinders?) etc. He has roughly $2000 into it now and it still isn't usable.

I'm not familiar with this type of injector, only experience being in Bosch type that use a shim to set pop pressure but what you may be able to do is rig up a pop tester out of an old bottle jack body, hydraulic gauge and injector line to be able to set the injectors to proper pressure (and more importantly, check the spray pattern & no drippers as that'll finish the engine off good n quick).

Guessing though this might be more a project for you, Les & not the friend since there's fabricobbling and high fluid pressures involved and death by hydraulic injection injuries are slow & painful way to go.

ekjdm14 wrote: Sadly this looks like your friend may have done more harm than good with cleaning and "adjusting" the injectors...

Yup.

I was quite appalled when he told me what he had done, but there really wasn't anything I could do about it by then. I did refrain from calling him names though.

ekjdm14 wrote: ...death by hydraulic injection injuries are slow & painful way to go.

Indeed. The only death will likely be that of his engine; yesterday he informed me that it now runs well enough to go ahead and run it I sincerely doubt that my hillbilly injector calibration is any where near where it should be, but time will tell

injpumpEd wrote: It'll be for sale, advertising "new pump & injectors" lmao! What a mess! Do-it-yourself jobs typically go just like this one did lmfao! I try to steer clear of them.

Indeed!

I never intended for my adjustments to be a permanent fix, I was simply trying to determine why it wouldn't run.

I did advise him that it needed a set of new or rebuilt injectors.