kevin_west•8d agoMost Upvoted

The old-timer who showed me how to prime an injector pump with a soda bottle

I was out on a job near Modesto a few years back, trying to bleed a Cat 3208 that wouldn't catch. An old farmer walked over, saw me cursing at the fuel lines, and handed me a half-empty Mountain Dew bottle he'd cut the bottom off of. He filled it with clean diesel, rigged it up as a gravity feed, and had the engine running in under 10 minutes. I still keep a cut-up soda bottle in my box for those hard-to-prime jobs. Anybody else got a weird field fix that actually works?

3 comments

3 Comments

wesley1818d ago

I tried that same trick once but used a Powerade bottle instead, and the blue dye made it look like I was running the engine on Gatorade. Worked fine though, which is more than I can say for my first attempt when I forgot to cut the bottom off. Now I just keep a designated bottle with the label peeled off so I don't confuse it with my actual drink.

ericj457d ago

Wait, you forgot to cut the bottom off and still tried to use it? I would have just stared at the bottle for a minute feeling like an idiot (which I do a lot honestly). That blue Gatorade look is actually kind of hilarious though. At least you had a visual reminder not to take a sip out of it. I'd probably still grab the wrong one after a long day working on the car. Maybe stick a big skull sticker on the engine one or something.

rubysingh6d ago

Used to think it was overkill to have a separate bottle just for that, but hearing about all the mix-up stories changed my mind completely. The skull sticker idea is genuinely smart for anyone who's running on three hours of sleep and grabbing the wrong bottle. Might just pick up a bright red bottle for solvent so it's impossible to confuse with anything drinkable.