After driving down some bumpy and dusty dirt roads my rig began running sluggish. At first I thought I had plugged up the air filter. I replaced it, that helped some, but it still would not drive faster than 55.
Eventually I discovered that it was the fuel filter. I have a Caterpillar 3126 diesel which has a dual fuel filter setup. There is a primary and a secondary filter mounted conveniently in a compartment accessible on the side of the coach. The primary filter acts as a water separator as well. When I pulled it off I found chunks of black crud plugging up several intake ports. There was a large chunk holding open the check valve back to the tank.
Fortunately this was a thirty dollar fix as the filter is common enough to be carried at most auto part stores. I got one at NAPA. The mounting base even has a convenient purge pump to get air out of the filter before restarting.
I discovered that the primary filter purge pump also works to purge the secondary filter.
This happened to me again after driving down bumpy roads with a mostly empty tank. I bought another primary filter and changed it, and now this beast has no trouble going seventy five on the interstate!
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