problem starting Saab diesel after running out of fuel

Whenever a diesel system on any engine runs out of fuel, it is always difficult to get going again because the air drawn into the fuel system creates loads of airlocks & are always hard to shift. The best way I know of to get rid of the air in the system is to crack the pipe at the most convenient point by loosening off a union as close to the fuel injectors as you can get. When you switch the key on I think the fuel pump pressurises the fuel system without having to turn the engine over, so hopefully it will continually try to pressurise the system & push the air out of the cracked point. When fuel comes out, switch off the ignition & tighten up the union. Hopefully your car should then start within 2 or 3 times.

The only risks I am aware of is that if you repeated try & start the car, anything that is fuel lubricated is likely to get damaged very quickly, so you might have damaged the fuel pump, but this should be apparent is you notice a drop in performance of your car.

Don't know - sorry

HTH

kds:-)

_____________ What are the risks/potential damage?

Thanks a lot for a professional piece of advice. Best regards TW

War story: Caterpillar tractors are all but impossible to start again even with a starting engine if the main engine is run out of fuel. Did you ever try towing a D8 Cat to get it started?

pressurises

You could always push it downhill with a prevailing wind!!! I've had similar nightmares trying to get train engines started.

kds :-)

"kingdoodlesquat" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com...

{SNIP}

Hello, are you really serious about this? I just can not imagine a "larger" diesel engine to NOT have some sort of bleeding mechanism. All the marine diesels I have come across had a sort of manual pump that includes an automatic bleeding valve....

How do they start those big engines up for the first time (at the factory) ?

Just curious.

Richard.

I remember on the older Diesel engines there used to be a lever on the fuel pump that you could operate by hand, to bleed the fuel lines of air.

That's what I remember exactly...

They probably prime all the fuel lines with an electric pump.

Trespassers W schrieb:

hi tw, i had this prob a long time ago: as i ran out of fuel, i parked my car on the right side, called the saab assistance and got the adac-helping-guy send to my place. he electricaly connected his van to mine and tried starting the engine several times. after not longer then

5 min the engine ran for itself. no other probs no discussion. afterwards, few months later, i had to change the (damaged) battery. as a serviceman from "banner" told my, the batteries in our 3.0 tid are to small in capacity and larger ones do not fit in the same place. best wishes to u chris

I've worked on diesel generators in the Royal Navy & on diesel engines / heaters on trains after I left & I've had nothing but heartache getting air out the fuel systems. All the problems I found always seemed to occur with fuel lines which had plenty of bends in the pipework & presumably plenty of places for air to be trapped, but I never came across anything which had built in bleed valves in the fuel system specifically for this purposes or manually operated pumps (I think). I'd put that down to typical British engineering & design. I seem to remember that on the new built trains, we had a bloke who had a series of portable pumps to charge the fluid systems, but I might be wrong, it was some years ago.

kds :-)

If you ever run out of diesel don't attempt to start it just buy some diesel put it in and don't press your accelerater give your car short 4 5 second brust and if your very lucky it will start like mine did good luck

Yeah me to I had same issue with my train engine to