NH 555E need help to prime

[NCman]

Hello,
I have a 99 555e and it started dying on me occasionally. Yesterday it died and would not re start. I read some threads about algae or fiber in the banjo bolts... so I disconnected mine and found a wad of brownish fiber. I cranked it and it ran great for 5 seconds. I found the glass bowl under the pump and I thought it was black plastic or steel at first. It was really dirty and was full of that same fiber and algae. Now that I have those two items clean I won't stay running. I can turn on key and hear the pump buzzing and after a minute It will crank and run for 5 seconds.
My hoe has the fuel filter with the electric pump above it on the housing. Basically, I'm just trying to get it primed and some fuel in the bowl and hoping.... for a little help.

Thanks, Dan

 

[Delmer]

Two options
1 Clean the fuel system from the tank to the filters, take it apart and blow out every hose, fitting, filter housing and run clean fuel through it to flush before hooking back to the engine. The tank may need to be rinsed, pressure washed, or removed and rotated with gravel, broken glass etc.

2 Clean the fuel system from the pump back to where you disconnect it to hook it to a temporary tank of clean fuel.

 

[NCman]

Thanks for the tips. After some more reading it looks like I cleaned the sediment/seperator bowl and the banjo bolt not the fuel pump itself. I also see that some models have a manual lever for re-priming a fuel system...down below the seperator on the lift pump. I will try manually priming mine with that lever first and then go through the lengthy process of cleaning the entire fuel system if that fails to work.

 

[Delmer]

If you have a water separator sediment bowl and that was filled up, then it's not nearly as bad. That was doing it's job and you may be fine, just check it more often, and get rid of/use up the old fuel.

If you have an electric fuel pump, then you probably don't have a priming lever. I could be wrong, don't know Fords, just in general. You should be able to find a bleeder on the filter, and/or injection pump, use the electric pump to bleed the air there. If there's no bleeder, loosen the line to the injection pump and run the electric pump until there's no air in the fuel there, AND there's a good flow of fuel. Put the throttle in the fastest position, and it should clear with a couple of trys.

 

[x-ray]

You will not have the primer lever with the electric pump. Once you have gone through the lines, and cleaned the bowl spotless, refill it to the top and add till it dribbles out of the top plastic fitting on top of that bowl assy. Then you will need to manually pull the fuel up to the line on the left side/inlet of the bowl assy. Most of these that I have seen do not have any sort of check valve and the pump just won't pull it up there without it first being up at the fitting to the bowl. What I do is pump it up using a cheap hand pump and once its coming out of that I use a hemostat or similar to clamp off the line temporary and then reattach to bowl. This should get you better then 90% there and not need to even crack an injector to bleed it, but you may. Anyway good luck. Be

 

[NH575E]

The easiest way to prime it is to pressurize the tank. I have a large rubber stopper with a small hole through the center I place over the cap hole and blow into it with a blower nozzle on a portable tank.

The best thing I did after getting my whole system cleaned out was to install a small engine fuel filter in the line before the sediment bowl. This catches stuff before fowling my whole system and clogging that large expensive filter. As soon as the engine starts to hunt I know that little $3 filter is getting clogged and change it. Have only had to change it 3 times in a year or longer.

 

[NCman]

Thanks again for the tips and the pic.
Today I went and used a hand pump to get fuel to the separator using the clamp method described. I also took the little plastic bleeder off the top of the separator housing and filled the bowl and that separator head till it overflowed... then reinstalled the plastic After that I installed the new fuel filter and left the filterdrain open until fuel came out while cranking. Then I shut the filter drain and Cranked for a bit until the engine ran. Still will only run for 5 seconds and die. I've got a mechanic coming and will update with results.

 

[mitch504]

I've never seen a machine that needed bleeding that would run 5 seconds. That sounds to me like a clog somewhere in the fuel return.

 

[NCman]

Well, I went out to the pretty to try one last time at cranking it. The mechanic was running about an hour behind. I had already bled the fuel line, separator and fuel filter. I decided to take the fuel line off the injection pump and follow the suggestion of turning on the key a few times. After disconnecting the injector pump line I turned on the key without cranking at full throttle and at first I got bubbles, then bubble filled fuel , then nearly clear fuel and I reconnected the line while key was still on. After that i proceeded to crank it for 5-6 revolutions and then it started to run. Now it's running perfectly. I can shut it off and crank back with least bit of cranking ever. In the end thanks a bunch fellas....calling the mechanic to tell him I got it running was priceless.
Also, In my service manual it says when cleaning the seperator bowl to add a new filter and seal when reassembling. All my bowl had inside was a plastic cone mounted to the seperator head. Is there supposed to be filter inside?
As far as my service manual, it says my hoe should have a lift pump with primer lever and it does not. The color schematic for fuel system is also different than mine. Is there a download service manual that covers a 555e by itself instead of the 555e 575e 655e 675e manual.

Much thanks again.

 

[NCman]

I've never seen a machine that needed bleeding that would run 5 seconds. That sounds to me like a clog somewhere in the fuel return.

Meant to reply to this in above post;
OK, maybe more like 2-3 seconds and die.

 

[x-ray]

No filter I've ever seen mentioned, typically the bowls just precipitate out the particles. Can see a picture of mine from this thread:
https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/threads/nh-655e-fuel-issue-maybe-something-else.57479/

Just like the pic from NH575 there is no lift pump, I might just do like he did and put a pre, pre, pre filter in with a check valve so that everytime I clean the toilet bowl its not a hassle to reprime..

 

[NCman]

No filter I've ever seen mentioned, typically the bowls just precipitate out the particles. Can see a picture of mine from this thread:
https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/threads/nh-655e-fuel-issue-maybe-something-else.57479/

Just like the pic from NH575 there is no lift pump, I might just do like he did and put a pre, pre, pre filter in with a check valve so that everytime I clean the toilet bowl its not a hassle to reprime..

thanks for clearing that up for me. i believe i'll do the same to mine.

 

[JD8875]

I had horrible issues with my 555E plugging the fitting just upstream of the bowl. I too added a cheap clear inline filter. Best thing I've done for it. I carry two spares in the glovebox. My house can be a bear to prime sometimes but it's usually not too bad if you just crack the bleeder screw on top of the fuel lift pump.

John

 

[NCman]

Hoe has been doing great but if left sitting for more than a week or so it won't crank. I immediately checked the banjo bolt for debris but it was clean since cleaning last time and adding that diesel algae clean stuff. I then turned on the key to let pump run and drained fuel filter from bottom til I got good clear fuel stream. Then I had to loosen injection pump line and do the same and it cranked immediately. Any idea as to why it's loosing it's prime after a week?

Thanks, Dan

 

[x-ray]

Did you notice any air in the fuel bowl or up top of it? Every time I mess with any of that the fuel runs right back to the tank, so you might need a check valve in the line on the left side of the Fuel bowl.

 

[NCman]

Nope, have no air above fuel in bowl that I can see...just full of fuel. When I checked the banjo bolt I crimped the fuel line to keep it primed. I'll ad a check valve as suggested...thanks

 

[NCman]

As mentioned, I have been removing the injection pump fuel line to prime the system. The rubber seal under the fitting of that line is old and maybe causing air in the system. Does anyone have a part number or size of that seal hoping I can buy it locally?

 

[NCman]

• I went to local NH dealer and got the rubber seal that is located at the injection pump inlet. It was 3.50 and now I have no more fuel prime problems and the line is tight with no movement as before. That must be what was causing fuel issue. Also, i have had problems cranking the backhoe. Battery was 4 yrs old so I got a new one and that did not fix it. I could crank it when I used my truck and jumper cables. The other day I decided to just connect the negative cables and it cranked....AhHa!
• I cleaned all connections that were gray and they are now shiny copper. I also removed those two woven ground cables and cleaned them. They were dark gray and now are shiny copper. I used a recipe found online.
• Just buy white vinegar and mix in a good bit of salt then immerse copper item in solution. It cleaned the woven braids in seconds and a wire brush assisted. Next mix baking soda and water and immerse item to stop vinegar salt process .
• Hoe starts easily now.

 

[thepumpguysc]

Very kool.. thanks..

 

[Delmer]

Are you going to solder the connections now that they're clean? They say a crimped connection is better than soldered, but that wouldn't happen if they had been soldered, IMHO.