T&T: Diesel problem maybe solved

[Jake2124 at aol.com]

Thank all of you who responded to my problem. Here is what I found so  far:
 
 I think I may have found the cause of the symptom, maybe not the  whole cause. A response I got was from someone who said he had the same  problem after taking on new fuel, then it went away after his next tank. Got me  to thinking and rechecking. In my experience, sudden new problems are usually  caused by several problems that sort of gang up and are synergetic. That may be  the case here. So here is where I am now, not too proud of my mistake. I  did take on new fuel at the same location where I was docked when I changed my  oil. I stated in my original post that the vacuum gage read zero. Well, I must  have misread it, because the indicator was sitting right on top of the red line,  and I was looking at the moving line after shut down, didn't see the  superimposed line on the red. So, the filter is dirty.Now, it could be that the  new fuel was dirty, maybe not. There are other circumstances. First, with  high vacuum on the line, I suppose it would be more likely to suck 
 some air in  from a imperceptibly loose connection. So far, I have not actually found  anything loose at all. Next, I have been using Startron Diesel additive since I  had the tanks cleaned spick and span 2000 hours ago and have never seen any  reading on the gage prior to today. The stuff must work. A year or so ago I  changed the Racor 2 micron filter even though at that time the vacuum gage  really did not show any reading at all. So, maybe I have dirty fuel,  maybe I have a small leak that shows up under higher vacuum, maybe the 2  micron Racor filter simply needed to be changed after 1200 hours. I am  puzzled as to why the engine would run just fine at normal operating speed and  load, but have the start issue, unless of course, the higher vacuum caused air  to be sucked into the system. So, I am going to change filters, snug up  everything I can, and see what happens. Just for information: the leak if any  must be really slow. I worked the manual lever on the lift pump
  today and  it was already moving with no pumping, indicating that t
he line after the pump  was holding pressure. Started the engine, stayed running no problem; Go  figure.
 
Jake




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