John Deere 5420 has no fuel from tank to filter
John Deere and it's lack of engineers, located the fuel tank below the engine/filter assembly, so it won't gravity feed. The little pump in the top of the fuel filter is worthless. The easy fix is to install an inline diesel fuel pump with a overpressure line off a blank fitting from the fuel filter, which will allow excess pressured fuel to flow back to the tank. What I did was install a fitting with a fuel hose about 2 feet long that has a lawn mower fuel cut off, with a section of hose after it, that can be plugged, when not used. Anytime fuel prime is lost to the filter, then it's a major effort to get it back. This is the cheap way. If you disconnect your fuel line the fuel flows all the way back to the tank, however I believe there is a check valve located underneath the tractor, before the tank, which keeps it from going all the way back. Anyway, I use a large cc syringe to pull fuel up to the filter. After each pull, I close the lawn mower shut off to keep the progress. Empty the syringe and then open the valve and pull some more. Once you have plenty of fuel to the filter, then I close the red fuel shutoff on the back of the fuel filter (closes the line to the tank). Then I push some fuel with the syringe toward the injector pump, while cranking the engine. At this point you don't want it to start, because you will pull all the fuel from the filter, because the red shut off is closed on the back of the filter. After only one or two "pushes" , then close off the lawn mower shut off, open the red shut off on the back of the filter, and crank. Mine usually starts about 5-15 seconds from starting to crank. DON'T CRANK TOO LONG, THE BOOK WARNS ABOUT OVERHEATING THE STARTER. What stupid engineers designed this? Hope this helps. As a side note the fuel hose off the tank is one size, and then it goes through the check valve and changes to a smaller diameter, to go to the filter.
