Sooty,

I had a Perkins Diesel in a Ford Major Diesel tractor for many years. It had a mechanical fuel pump driven by the camshaft, just like older gasoline car engines, but it had a lever on the bottom of the fuel pump that could be worked by hand to prime the system. I never had any trouble priming the fuel system. It had a Simms IP.

I never had much trouble starting that engine. It had a compression releases system to get it started in cold weather, no glow plugs. The rocker shaft was rotated about 30 degrees by a decompression lever, located on the front of the valve cover, which kept the valves open slightly, thus there was no compression in the cylinders. The starter would crank the engine very fast and when the decompression lever was returned to run position, the engine usually started immediately.

One poor design of the system was that it took 2 people to start it: one to move the decompression lever and the other to push the starter lever. They both could not be reached at the same time because they were on opposite sides of the tractor.

As the tractor got older, it still ran good, but would overheat because of a leaking head gasket. I replaced the gasket 4 times, had the head ground flat, shimmed up the wet sleeves above the specified amount, but the head gasket still leaked and it overheated and lost coolant.

So I got tired of fixing the FMD and got a Case Diesel tractor to replace the FMD. I just let it set for years until a guy offered me $500 for it so I sold it.

P E H