Accidentally put gas in a diesel truck...

EnergyFX · January 18, 2004

Hey guys, a friend of mine is in NC right now on his way down to visit us from Boston. He called me about an hour ago in complete distress. Apparantly he had a complete brain-fart and filled his PowerStroke Diesel up with unleaded. Needless to say he didn't make it down the road very far after that. He said it started backfiring and had a total loss of power. He pulled it over immiediatly and it pretty much died on it's own.

Have any of you heard of this happening before, and if so, how severe was the damage. He's already looking at a few hundered $$$ at least just to drain the tank and fuel system and replace the filters. We're hoping that will be all that is involved and the injection system is unharmed.

I'm basically just trying to get him some info from other's experiences.

Antibling · January 18, 2004

Hes lucky he didnt blow the heads or something worse. Gas is very explosive, diesel is less, diesel engines have very high compression which is the only thing that causes combustion, add to that compression the explosiveness of gas and you are asking for disaster. My guess is he is probably looking at having to go through the whole engine or a new one.

Antibling · January 18, 2004

Oh also, if it died on its own, that is more than likely a sign of breakage there.

The SPEEDY · January 18, 2004

I don't know, my friend did it one time on a non turbo ford and after he drained the gas and put it some diesel it ran fine.

The truck dieing like that really doesn't mean something broke, the computer probably realized something was wrong and shut everything off.

I bet he won't ever do it again.

EnergyFX · January 18, 2004

I bet he won't ever do it again.

You're probably right about that! My theory is that since the diesel engine has no spark plugs then once the mixture of gasoline in the fuel system got high enough that compression was not sufficient enough to cause ignition it eventually caused the motor to die. A diesel will not run on gas so it would have had to die at some point anyways... I think/hope.

He just called me back and said he got a tow to a service station and the mechanic there is hopeful that a fuel system flush will get him back on the road. This after hour repair service is going to cost him an arm and a leg.

Thanks for the responses fellas!

Tucson_02Silverado · January 18, 2004

Not making far down the road is probably a sign that as soon as the diesel ran out of the fuel line that the gasoline quelch the combustion chambers by rapid cooling.

Yeah also kinda lucky the high compression didn't light off the gasoline engine probably still too cool.

Flush tank/lines, filters and don't forget about the oil (possibly saturated with gasoline blow by)

Frank S · January 18, 2004

There's a good chance he did do some real damage but roughly the same thing happened to my father in law with a '95 F350.

He was used to driving their F150 and put 87 octane in it one day and I had to go drain the tank the next day.We didn't get all of the gas out of the lines but managed to get it cranked and it sounded just like a gasoline engine until it circulated some diesel through.

He may be OK but he won't know for sure until he drains and tries.

QUIKAG · January 18, 2004

Let us know how it works out for him and his truck!

EnergyFX · January 18, 2004

Well, 5 hours and about $400 later he's back on the road running nice and smooth again. Mechanic drained the tank, flushed the lines, purged the pump, and replaced the filters. Truck is running like a box of marbles again. Thank God there was no severe damage (at least none that has made itself apparant yet).

Sucks, he should have been here a couple hours ago but now he's having to backtrack 40 miles to get his 27' gooseneck off the side of the road and then get on a 4 hour trip down here.