Sorry, no pictures, just a narrative. I'm doing Reserve duty this week, and sure enough, this morning I heard "Sergeant Strawn, can you check the Ramp Ranger? It's cranking but won't start."
The Ramp Ranger is a trailer with a diesel-powered vacuum and a big tank and it's used for sucking up the de-icing fluid after de-icing a plane. It's scheduled to snow today and tonight, and one of the technicians was thinking ahead to check all the equipment before hand.
"If it's not starting, let's tow it back to the shop and troubleshoot it." I recommended.
"The squeegee is down and you have to start the engine to lift it." she answered.
Well, fart. It was already 30°F and drizzling. The Ramp Ranger has a little Kubota diesel 4-banger. Being in Oklahoma, it sits for eight to ten months at a time and sometimes loses its prime. I grabbed a bag of tools to bleed the injectors and drove across the flightline to a hidden spot behind the hangar where the crewchiefs are "storing it".
I loosened the nuts on the injectors, but after cranking a bit I wasn't getting any fuel. I started back-tracking through the fuel system and found the line from the fuel filter to the pump was empty. I decided to check and see if there was fuel in the fuel filter, and I discovered the fuel filter split open. Hmm... that's weird. I drove back to the shop and got a new fuel filter and the jump box because the battery was struggling.
I put the new filter on and tried using both the finger-operated priming pump on the side of the fuel pump and the starter to try and get it primed. Nothing. The fuel system is pretty straightforward and simple, so I went back to the shop again and got a gallon of diesel, a tiny funnel, and a squirt can of oil. I shot oil up into the fuel pump to prime the seals. I filled the fuel line and filter with diesel. Again I tried using the priming pump and cranking the engine to get fuel flowing, and after a while I started getting fluid out of the top of the injectors, but it didn't look right. I dipped a glove in it and smelled. Water. I looked under the fuel tank, and there was a 1" drain plug, but no spigot.
I drove back to the shop (see a theme here?) in time for lunch. After lunch I grabbed a ford wrench and a bucket. I drained almost a gallon out of the tank, one big gush at a time. The "fuel" didn't smell and I couldn't see a separation layer between the water and fuel. Weird. I drove the sample back to the shop to get a second set of eyes on it. With better lighting and warmer air so my sniffer could work, we realized it was all water. I went back and drained more. As I drained, a gush at a time, I suddenly got the strong smell of fuel. I'd drained 1.5 gallons of water at that point. I checked the new fuel filter and it was full of nothing but water from me trying to prime it. I put another new filter on it, drained what I could out of the injector lines, and then proceeded to start priming again, but the battery and jump box were both dead.
I drove back to the shop again, tossed the old battery into the battery room for charging, put the jump box on a charger, and got a brand spankin' new $200 Optima battery. I dumped all the contaminated fuel into the waste fuel barrel and cleaned out the bucket. I headed back across the flightline.
I cranked and almost immediately got water out of the injectors. I cranked and cranked and thought I was going to kill a brand new battery, but then the motor banged once... twice... I tightened the injectors and it came to life. Success!
Mind you, this piece of equipment is supposed to get an inspection every six months. I checked the maintenance forms on it, and someone signed it off in August. The fact that the fuel filter was split tells me that water was in there last year. We's gonna have a chat tomorrow about pencil-whipping. Then we're going to have a chat with the crewchiefs about storing it inside like they promised they would.