Gasoline in my Diesel. My worst nightmare come true.

[moodyerdoc]

It happened. The details of "how" are too painful to discuss. 3 quarters of a tank of gasoline in my 2016 6.7 L Cummins Ram 3500. It gets worse. I wasn't aware of the fatal mistake until the engine began to sputter.....40 miles down the interstate. Pulled off immediately, contacted the gas station, and confirmed the error. Truck parked since.

Awaiting tow to the dealer. So to all of you more knowledgeable than me, what's the worst case scenario, and what's the best? Hopefully.....I land somewhere in between. I've already read several sites that the entire fuel line will need replaced as well as pulling and draining the tank. What else can I brace myself for?

Not quite the worst day of my life.....but close.

Moody

 

[chrisp2493]

It happens. Sucks you didn’t catch it quicker, sorry about your luck


I Bleed Ram Trucks

 

[MADDOG]

Drain the tank, fuel system flush, filter change would all be things I'd do with the fuel system in that instance.

Hopefully your head and injectors are OK. How much fuel did you have in the tank before you filled it up? How much do you think you used before the sputtering occured?

 

[moodyerdoc]

Below 1/4 tank before filling up. Drove 30 miles before feeling a little give to the engine. Drove another 5 miles with some increase in symptoms, but not yet limping. Got off the highway and shut her down.

 

[BWL]

Blow out the lines, drop and drain the tank, replace filters and bleed. The system to get as much fuel out as possible. Best case scenario it fires up no worse for wear. Best not to think about worst case.

 

[moodyerdoc]

thanks for the responses. Any idea how long it takes a shop to do the above?

 

[CBTBOB]

Shouldnt take more than 1 day to drain the tank, blow out the lines, filters change. It's not that hard to do.

 

[yillbs]

I still want to know why you had to call the gas station to validate what you did... please share you're truck will be fine, so let's move on to the good stuff!

 

[Ratket]

What everyone else has said- drain/blow out/change filters- Cross fingers.

Now .. let’s hear how it happend.

 

[Tach_tech]

Every now and then we get a diesel in the shop that this happened. Drain/clean the tank, change filters, blow out lines. Should be fine.

It can be much worse. We just got a truck in that the customer put 30L of DEF in the diesel tank then drove it till it stalled on him. He’s looking at a 20K bill for that oops.

 

[BWL]

Expect about 4-5 hours shop time plus whatever the filter and fresh diesel costs. Good luck.

 

[moodyerdoc]

Ok, for all you sadists out there....here's what happened.

Pulled over to a BP in Tennessee en route from St. Louis to Florida. 3 kids crying for bathroom break, food break, distractions all around, yada, yada. Grabbed the green pump handle (which universally is diesel in Missouri where we're from). Normally very careful to confirm diesel pump, but brain fart for a minute I guess. Never thought about the possibility that i pumped from the wrong pump, didn't even consider my error until the truck started sputtering down the interstate. Had my suspicions then, and called the station to confirm my deepest fears. Bartender, pour me another....

 

[BWL]

I'm guessing the nozzle for diesel is yellow where you filled up. I'm used to green, blue or red for gas, but yellow reserved for diesel everywhere.

 

[monteholic]

I hope you get this fixed as cost effective as possible, we all have done the unthinkable at one time or another

so I hope luck is on your side!!!!

 

[BWL]

I've done diesel in my gas. Not as bad, but the same mistake.

 

[moodyerdoc]

Thanks all. Headed to the dealer in the morning to find out the damage. I'll follow up and let you know. Just hoping injectors aren't melted, or worse. I'm hoping that shutting the engine down as soon as it started showing disturbance salvaged the expensive parts.....

 

[big tom]

That's B.S. isn't it !. Diesel has always been green!. Some moron in a office that doesn't even know which color on a pump handle means what type or grade and he's designing gas pumps and making them what color he wants that you can barely figure how to use. The BP where I fill up the work truck has taken a sharpe marker to the handles and even labeled them there having so many people grab the wrong pump. At work I went from a diesel to a gaser and I really have come close to dumping the wrong fuel in.

These are the same designers that take a 25 car parking lot and have I stripped for 40 car lot to meet code, because every one should be driving a prius like them!.

 

[chrisp2493]

That’s how I put diesel in my truck, stopped at BP, I was in a big hurry, grabbed the black handle and put 10 gallons in. As far as I’ve seen BP is the only station that has the colors switched. It is absolute B.S. there’s NO reason to have the colors switched


I Bleed Ram Trucks

 

[Ratket]

Ya I have only ever seen diesel handles green. I was about to put diesel into my gas truck once but the nossle is also larger than a gas nossle so luckily it didn’t fit, but I tried and was like wtf... ohhhh shiittt close call.

 

[Mountaineer83]

I too have almost put diesel in my hemi recently, at a BP. Black handle was diesel, green was gas. Where I grew up in WV diesel was always green!