Today Charles has one more reason to celebrate his birthday - He fixed the engine! After bleeding the fuel line dozens of times and looking EVERYWHERE for leaks and other issues, he finally found the trouble.

The fuel cut-off valve (used to stop the diesel engine by cutting off the fuel supply) is pulled closed by the solenoid when you stop the engine.



As soon the engine stops, the solenoid moves the cut-off valve back to a full open position. This puts the engine in 'ready mode' to be started the next time. Some how, some way when we stopped the engine on May 2nd the cut-off valve failed to open all the way. It was about a 10th of an inch from the full open position. Since we could not get the engine started again, the solenoid could never reset the fuel valve so it remained in this almost open position from then on, starving the engine of just enough fuel to keep it from starting.

Before you say - "Wow Charles, why didn't you see such an obvious problem?", you must know ALL the facts. First, the valve was mostly hidden under the solenoid assembly AND second, when Charles looked at it, it looked exactly like it does in the photo above (open).

So, thanks to a lot of persistence (and maybe a little birthday luck), Charles the "grease monkey" has come through again!