THE PORTAL HUB - Pinzgauers, Haflingers, Volvo 303s and more!

Pinzgauer let me down for the first time today and would not start. turned over but not firing at all.

Although it was a bright morning it had been damp with a heavy dew so I put some WD-40 in the distributor and checked the plug cables. Still no start.

Well I guess I was lucky, the sun was shining and I was at home and had a free morning.

I checked for spark, removing one plug and held against the engine while turning over... spark good.

I checked fuel by removing the fuel line to the carbs, held it into a small cup and turned the engine over... NO FUEL.

I looked at the fuel filter and it looked clean. I saw the gauge showed empty so I put the spare can in the tank 20l, still no start.

I took the fuel line off the front of the fuel filter and blew back into the tank, heard the bubbles so knew that line was not blocked.

I took the fuel line off after the fuel pump, fed it into a cup and turned the engine over... NO FUEL.

I took the fuel filter off, now I saw the problem, on the underside of the filter all sorts of debris had gathered including some dreaded red flakes.

New fuel filter fitted, a lot of turning over on a very tired battery and she fired up. Ran smooth as ever.

Just glad I didn't have to do it all on a mountain in the middle of winter. But was glad I only used tools and parts that I normally carry in the truck.

Great step by step troubleshooting!

I recently switched to a solid fuel filter, but the benefits to a clear one (which was there previously) are obvious.

My truck has been rough at idle, this reminds me to check the fuel filter first....

It's AMAZING how much debris can be found in an average 40 yr. old Pinzgauer gas tank! There are lots of hiding places in there. I drain and clean mine once a summer.

Twin Pinzies wrote:It's AMAZING how much debris can be found in an average 40 yr. old Pinzgauer gas tank! There are lots of hiding places in there. I drain and clean mine once a summer.

I hope I don't sound too silly asking this question... .....what do you clean it with? Just drain, water and dry?

Again......I almost regret asking....

I have removed the tank before, but now I do it this way:
- Drive the truck around until the fuel gauge is below the "R" mark.
- Pull the fuel line from the inlet side of the filter and blow on it in order to purge any debris back into the tank.
- Put a clean (and preferably white) 5 gallon bucket under the tank and pull the drain plug.
- Watch the "almost empty" tank ALMOST FILL the entire 5 gallon drain bucket with gas!
- Re plug the gas tank drain.
- Using a strainer, pour the gas back into the tank then wipe out the debris in the bucket and the strainer.
- Place the bucket back under and drain again... while rocking/sloshing the truck back and forth very hard!
- REPEAT this process until you are no longer getting any debris showing up in the drain bucket.
- Replace the fuel filter with a new one.

Make sure that you look up into the tank through the drain hole after each draining to see if any large pieces of debris have made their way over the drain hole and are not making it out of the hole. (I have pulled BIG pieces of plastic and newspaper out of my tanks this way before!)

Great sounds pretty thorough. I'll give her a try

I too have had problems with red flakes in the gas, turned out to be from the spare gas can.

After reading this post I changed my fuel filter, I hadn't done so in a few years. While doing so I discovered one of the fuel solenoids had the wire disconnected and dangling. The other 3 aren't too tight, so I'm changing all 4 connectors today.

So today came the time to sort the dirt in the fuel problem which blocked my fuel filter a few weeks back.

I had always estimated the range of my truck on a full tank at 400 kms, so after the last couple of weekends travelling to shows, all on one tank, I had clocked up 394 km and the fuel gauge was well below R. I drained the tank of the remaining 5l (25 km worth of fuel).

The fuel that came out was clean, no gunge, no red flakes, nothing I filtered the fuel back in and I'm happy that the tank is as clean as can be. Maybe the dirt came from my old jerry can, which I have since stopped using.

Happy Truck

Nice look'n K. I seem to have a soft spot for the K-models. Congrats on your findings!