You Just need to Persist

I decided that I needed to start my Oliver 1800 and move it to a place where it would not be in the mud when the frost leaves the ground. Tried to start it but it turned slow so I put the charger to it or about 30 minutes and tried again. No go, turned no faster than before so I gave it another 30 minutes and tried again and this time it cranked fast for a couple of revolutions and back to just grunting.

I finally walked away and went on to some other projects and almost forgot that the charger was still connected to the tractor. When it occurred to me that I was still trying to get the old tractor running so back I went. This time it spun over rapidly but it did not fire. My wife who was watching me suggested that I was out of fuel but I did notice some smoke from the stack so I was pretty sure I had some fuel. Next I tried a little starting fluid but that did not seem to help so I decided not to use that anymore.

Well, very 10 minutes or so I gave her a whirl and finally it sputtered a few times and finally started. I quickly moved it to its new parking spot and sat on it to let it run for a few minutes to warm it up good when it began to sputter and act like it was going to stall so I shut it off. Took a look in the fuel tank [diesel] and sure enough my wife was right again.

NO, I have not told her!

What she neglected to tell you is about the neighbor who she gave permission to siphon a few gallons out of it.

How hard will that be to prime? Even our self-priming JD was not real easy. I have never ran it our of fuel, but I changed filters.

Sounds like you and her have been down this road before! I hate it when they are right. Particularly if they just get lucky.

My late wife of 48 years had a very good intuition about things like that. I eventually learned to listen to her and often saved time and energy.

It should not be to hard to start as I shut it down while it was still running. Anyway it is not my first time running out of fuel, just my first time when I might have been wrong, NOT.
Happy farming.

But why was it cranking so slow, just cold?? batteries cold and old?? I try not to use starting fluid, BUT!! when I doit is only after I am getting a good column of white smoke from the exhaust. Mine does not rattle the inards doing it that way. Everytime an engine has trouble starting my wife will say," does it need a new fuel filter?" One of these days maybe something will. But it has never been the fuel filter on anything. She did learn that the muffler belt is not real, was kinda grumpy when she found out I had been spoofing her. gobble

I hate when that happens, SOMBO being right that is.

If you go to her first and ask what the problem is it might save you some time if she will be right, and if she is wrong she is the one who is wrong and you are still
trying to get it going, nothing lost and she can't say, "you should have just asked me".