4JB1T loosing prime?

[magicdeo]

G'day,

I have a 4JB1T. The engine has always run faultlessly since the IP was rebuilt about 170 thousand kms ago. A few months ago, my engine cut out while idling through town after driving about 2 kms. After i pumped the hand primer several times, the car started again and ran absolutely beautifully on a 500km trip towing a full trailer. After reaching my destination, the car was switched off and when i ran it again 2 hours later (this was summer so still plently of temp in the engine) the same thing happened. It then ran beautifully for about 3 months with no issues before doing the same thing again, this time after driving about 15kms on the highway so the engine was fully up to temperature. It is now happening more frequent. On a 35km trip to work today it happened to me twice. The car just looses all power, when i pull over the engine stalls and is unable to be started until the hand primer is pumped. Then, the engine always runs beautifully after doing this with plenty of power. Any ideas?
So far I have removed the inlet hose to the fuel filter and blown compressed air into the tank to remove any possible build ups on the pick up. I checked all tank breathers are clear. I run a delphi 296 filter cartridge set up with the glass bowl (and have done for about 180 thousand kms), i swapped this with my fathers filter set up (identical filter housing) as i thought it may be sucking air but this has not fixed it. I also put a clear hose from the filter to the IP and while idling and revving the engine while stationary, there was no air in the hose whatsoever. I did however check the hose after the engine stalled on me and it was only half full of diesel but the glass bowl on the fuel filter was still full. Could it be the IP or can something between the tank and fuel filter be causing it to loose its prime? Everything looks ok visually. Im going to try replacing all the fuel hoses on the suction side. I would of thought that the IP is either good or bad, not really good for most of the time and then go bad and irregular intervals. There is nothing common about this issue, full fuel tank, empty tank, hot engine, cold engine, highway driving, town driving. When the engine is running, it is faultless which has me scratching my head. I will say that I cannot think of anything that changed prior to this issue happening.

Any ideas would be appreciated. I originally had the fuel pump rebuilt due to the front seal sucking in air, but this issue was always common to a cold start and would never happen after the engine heated up. My common issue feels the same as that but seems different in the fact that its so random

Cheers

[geeves]

The pulley seal on the pump can cause this but my money is still on an air leak at either the filter the primeing pump or one of the hoses on the suction side of things

[magicdeo]

Would the pulley seal cause it to be so random? And also to come good and run perfectly without fault after priming?
Is this a job a diesel shop can fix without stripping the pump? I'm surprised if it is that seal, 170k is not old and i have always run 2 stroke in my fuel also.

Cheers

[geeves]

Really the only place in the pump with a vacuum although a bad leak there will drop diesel. As I said though double check the easy things first. Air in the line from the filter suggests its before that line. One otheer posibility is the pick up in the tank