Universal 640 quit and won't restart

Hello, just a little background, I'm new to tractors
this is my first one. I'm very technicaly inclinded just
not a whole lot of diesel experience.
I bought this mid 80's Universal 640 DTC from a
guy that barely used it. It was hard starting unless
plugged in which I think was commen for almost 35
F. But has always started and white smoke until
warm. Last Sunday my wife was on it for a couple of
hours moving gravel in the driveway and ran great. I
got on it a few days later to warm it up and change
the hydraulic oil. It started up and ran for a few min
then stalled now won't restart. It still had the fuel in it
from when I bought it and was far from empty but I
added some. I have new fuel filters so I decided to
change them, the primary was full of crap. Bled the
fuel system. The manual pickup pump quit
sometime ago so the previous own installed an
electric unit. Bled through the filters and the
injection pump to the injectors. When cracking open
the injector lines there doesn't seem to be much
pressure it just trickles out, from what I know about
diesels it should be very high pressure?
So my question is did something happen inside the
injection pump causing no pressure? Or is there
something else I should look for. Would you
recommend taking the pump apart myself or just
send it out for rebuild? Any insite would be great.

Hello, the news may not be good. I had a customer's Universal tractor, a later burgundy coloured one many years ago which was used for launching and recovering boats at a local seaside resort in Wales. It showed the same problem as yours. Everything seemed to be in order but it could not generate enough fuel pressure to start. The main pump was repaired and it was reported back that something major had happened inside the pump and it was not repairable. This may be the case with yours. They look very much like the popular CAV type pump and are based on them but I believe that is where similarity ends. I think that you will find that the pump is made by UTB under licence and everything will probably be metric whereas the CAV would be unf/unc. Don't attempt to repair it yourself. As far as I can recall it is not possible for the timing to change when you remove the drive sprocket through the access cover on the front but don't take that for certain.
If you have replaced the filters and your electric lift pump is sending a good flow through the pump vent screws then there is not much more that you can do....ensure that you have clean water-free diesel coming through.
Let us know what you find.
DavidP, South Wales

I am thinking there is a fuel restriction somewhere. I would drain the tank of old fuel and start fresh since there may be algae in it. Then make sure that the fuel line feeding the pump is unrestricted. Does fuel flow out of the tank freely? Old fuel hose can suck a little air making it hard to start. Does it have a hand primer on it? Could pump that up and then try to start it. Should be parts around for those as it was the same as the Fiat 640. Oliver 1365 and White 1370 are also similar tractors.

Do you have good fuel on the line that goes into the injection pump? If so then you probably have air in the pump its self those tractors are really hard to bleed out,I usually just tow start my Fiat tractors after doing things like changing filters.Might have to tow it several hundred yards to get it to fire up.