There have been a couple of mentions in SEM recently about small Japanese diesels needing a dose of petrol for starting, so I thought I'd give it a go on the recalcitrant Kubota KND3. First I tried with nothing more than a few priming 'creaks' from the injector and sure enough got the usual lazy puffs of white smoke with no real inclination to fire, then I put a dose of petrol in the priming cup on the inlet pipe but, despite cranking for all I was worth, it still wouldn't start. Disappointed, I resorted again to a small puff of gypsy's breath and away she went - sounding fine and with a nice clean exhaust. I let it run until the hopper was steaming nicely when a stop and restart showed that once hot firing up was no problem.
While warm, I decided to replace the unknown and very black contents of the sump with some of Wilkinsons finest 20-50 (nice to know you can still get 'thick' multigrade and it's cheap too). This done, I twizzled it round for a while until the oil pressure tell-tale came up then opened the 'throttle' and dropped the valve lifter expecting nothing as the engine was by now barely warm to the touch - blow me the thing fired, taking me so much by surprise that I whacked myself on the knee cap with the starting handle. Once the pain had subsided I made a proper attempt to start it and after a couple of swings, away it went again.
As they say on the other side of the pond - go figure!
BTW for anyone who has managed to erase the Pink Pig from their memory (Lord knows I've tried), here is a reminder of its - well - PINKNESS:-