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Foretravel Motorhome Forums => Foretravel Tech Talk => Topic started by: twobus on June 07, 2022, 04:41:25 pm

Title: cat 3208 cranks, no start :/
Post by: twobus on June 07, 2022, 04:41:25 pm
Hi y'all,
Moby the Road Condo has always fired up on the first half-revolution, til now. Turns over, but no go, no smoke out tailpipe. After doing a search here, I primed the system with the hand pump in the fuel filter housing, and verified I have electrons in the upper of the 2 wires on the fuelpump solenoid. What I don't know yet, is if that's the one that needs current, or is that the one that goes to the alternator? And if that top wire is the right one to get that solenoid to talk, and I still have no fuel, what do I do next? Thx!
Title: Re: cat 3208 cranks, no start :/
Post by: oldguy on June 07, 2022, 05:18:01 pm
Put you hand on the fuel solenoid and have someone turn your key off and on and
off and you should feel it click. If it doesn't click the solenoid is shot or you don't have
enough power to it or a bad ground.
Title: Re: cat 3208 cranks, no start :/
Post by: twobus on June 07, 2022, 05:43:11 pm
Okay! Now to find a solenoid cuz this one appears to be done. (brief search) that was easy but maybe I better remove this one and see if I can get it to work. or see if it starts and all that..
Title: Re: cat 3208 cranks, no start :/
Post by: Doug W. on June 07, 2022, 05:51:31 pm
If you lost prime you will probably need to purge air from fuel/injector lines by loosening them while pumping maybe only have to do a couple than try to start. Last resort couple squirts of ether in air intake while someone cranks the engine.
  You might check top of engine with a flash light in the V of the block under the injection pump for fuel leakage.
Title: Re: cat 3208 cranks, no start :/
Post by: wolfe10 on June 07, 2022, 05:53:27 pm
How many pumps of the manual primer did it take to prime/stroke go from easy to very hard?
Title: Re: cat 3208 cranks, no start :/
Post by: Twig on June 07, 2022, 08:30:14 pm
Okay! Now to find a solenoid cuz this one appears to be done. (brief search) that was easy but maybe I better remove this one and see if I can get it to work. or see if it starts and all that..
When 12V is applied to the shutoff solenoid, it lifts an apparatus that opens the fuel rack fully. You can bypass the solenoid by tie wrapping whatever it lifts up to the fully open position and you can run normally. To shut the engine off you must cut the tie wrap which cuts the fuel feed. The engine should fire right up because with the loss of the solenoid, there is no loss of prime. I have my fingers crossed.
Title: Re: cat 3208 cranks, no start :/
Post by: Protech Racing on June 07, 2022, 09:18:51 pm
Could you post the part # when you find it please?   
 Thanks,MM
Title: Re: cat 3208 cranks, no start :/
Post by: twobus on June 08, 2022, 04:18:48 pm
Update.. the lever that the solenoid pushes on to shut off fuel was stuck in the down (off) position. So, no start no matter what the solenoid did. Liberal cleaning and fiddling and applications of BreakFree make it so it easily springs upward, and it fires right up with the solenoid uninstalled. But as soon as I bolt it back in place, after verifying that yes indeed it does what it should when wired up, we're back to no start. So even at full retract, it's still keeping the lever from coming up enough to flow fuel. Well this bothered me, until I couldn't help but notice that there is no gasket between the solenoid and the pump, and I got curious enough about that to go online and yes, it sure looks like there's supposed to have been a gasket there, which would raise the solenoid up presumably enough to make everything work as intended. Hmm. Instead of gasket, all I saw was junk that needed wiping away. Good thing for me, I have plenty of gasket material laying about. To answer your question Mr. Wolfe, I had one soft pump and then it stiffened right up. And for Protech Racing, it appears the stop solenoid part number is 6686715 but I haven't bought one as this one works just fine..
Title: Re: cat 3208 cranks, no start :/
Post by: twobus on June 09, 2022, 05:57:53 pm
OK! She starts and stops as normal. But of course we can't stop there, oh dear me no. I stepped out, onto the retractable porch step, and all the rivets holding the step to the hinge said " I've had enough" and now I have a whole new problem. Foretravel doesn't carry this item, can't say I'm surprised. Oh boy! Won't this be fun. Will fill the holes with some stuff I have here that makes Devcon look weak, see if self tapping screws are strong enough to replace the rivets, and hope for the best unless one of you wizards here has a better idea...
Title: Re: cat 3208 cranks, no start :/
Post by: rbark on June 09, 2022, 06:26:51 pm
Don't have a better idea for you but would sure like to know what's better than Devcon!
Title: Re: cat 3208 cranks, no start :/
Post by: twobus on June 09, 2022, 08:42:16 pm
I have several boxes of Huntsman Epocast 1635. I got it at Boeing Surplus, they use it in 787 wings. It's kinda astonishing. But I'm not gonna use it, after looking the situation over, I've decided that going up one size in rivets is the way to solve this problem.