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srt20's avatar
srt20
Explorer
Jan 29, 2017

Wife put gas in my diesel truck....

And of course, she is 3 hours away from home.

Fun Saturday for me, drop the kids off at our friends house. Her husband goes with me for a road trip to drain the tank on my 2005 Dodge Cummins.

My wife works a block of shifts at a hospital 3 hrs away every few weeks or so in a mid sized city. She pulls into a gas station, that happens to have a heavy police presence across the street at a kind of crummy looking motel.

So she's watching at whats going on across the street and just grabs the fuel pump handle and starts fueling. Truck was almost out of diesel, fuel light had been on for 30 miles. At around 20 gallons, she realizes that she's pumping gas instead of diesel.

She calls me immediately, and of course she's crying. I ask her if she started it, and she says no. Ok good. I tell her don't start it, and it will have to get towed and drained. She said theres an auto shop next door to the gas station. Awesome. She goes over there and talks to them. They can't do it until Monday, which is understandable its Saturday, and its going to cost a minimum of $300. I think $300 is pretty reasonable, but I don't like the "minimum" part. I have her start the truck and as quickly as possible, park it away from the pumps. She does this while Im on phone with her, it takes no longer than 15 seconds.

Screw it, Im going go up there and do it myself. My bud goes with me. We take a bunch of tools, a bunch of empty gas cans, and set off. We stop at a store on the way and grab some cheap 1/2" diameter clear vinyl hose, 2 quarts of cheap 2 stroke oil, and a new fuel filter.

We get up there, remove fuel filter from canister, which smelled like gas btw, and replaced lid. I remove the factory drain line from the fuel filter canister, and put the 6ft vinyl hose on the drain. Luckily, the 1/2" house fit perfectly, so that was a good guess.

Ran that hose to a gas can, opened drain valve, and turned the key on. Fuel pump kicked on and started sending the gas into the gas can. We make a half way attempt to run power directly to the fuel pump via the fusebox under hood. It didn't work easily, and switching the key on and off was working very well. So we just forgot that idea. Although, switching the key on and off was also kicking on the grid heater as well. So I was draining the batteries very quickly. But we did bring jumper cables, so we hooked up to the other truck and continued. I did find out, if you leave the key on, and just click the starter, the fuel pump will cycle on again, but the grid heater stays off. So I started doing that way.

Anyway, about an hour to drain the tank. Put new fuel filter in. We brought a couple diesel cans along. Put 10 gallons of diesel back into the truck, along with the 2 quarts of 2 stroke oil and started it up and drove it back to the pumps and filled it as full as I could get it. Went for a 10 mile ride and all was good. Dropped it off at her work, and drove another 3 hours back home.

Temp was 25* F, so it wasn't too cold out.


Oh BTW, the reason for the heavy police presence was because somebody did an armed robbery at that gas station and ran across the street where a officer shot and killed that person. The TV channels were setting up shop in the same parking lot that we were draining the gas. Maybe they got some video of us....haha


Sorry for the book, but I thought somebody on here might find it interesting.
  • Nice job on the fix srt. Cool thinking on a stressful situation. I'm sure I would have forgotten two or three items before getting to the truck...
  • RoyB wrote:
    I guess the different size of hoses only protects you from putting Diesel fuel into a gas engine. Not the other way around...

    Roy Ken


    That would only be true at a regular truck stop where all of the nozzles are the large size. At most gasoline service centers where diesel fuel is sold, they have the small size nozzles to fit diesel cars.

    The Duramax guys can jump in and let us know if it still true or not. Use to be that Fords and Dodge/RAMs could except the larger nozzles. GMs only had the small nozzle size and could not use the truck stops. Maybe the newer GMs have been changed.
  • As for the green handles, I used to think the same---green=diesel but them I notice that one brand of gas station has green handles on the gas pumps. I think it may be BP but I'm not sure. I'm just more careful now. And I've never let the wife add fuel to the truck, that $13000-15000 bill dances before my eyes. Or DEF for that matter not that that would ever be likely.
  • Great job. As my dad use to remind me to use your head for more than a hat rack.:B
  • Easy to do and you're lucky she caught it and that she called you before driving. Years ago I made same mistake once on my 01.

    When I re-did my fuel system (thanks to having the famous vp44 injector pump) I plumbed in a hose so I can gravity drain my fuel tank. Nothing fancy, just a simple push lock fittings and a shut off valve at other end. Since that time of getting fuel mixed up, the only time I've drained any fuel was when someone needed a couple of gallons.

    Another thing to be careful about. In my state the diesel pumps have green handles. Be careful by just grabbing the green handle. Found out almost by mistake that some states (I can't remember which state) does not have green handles. Or maybe it was just where I filled up at.
  • DutchmenSport wrote:
    Wow! That's quite a story. Ever since I owned my first diesel, I've had this horrid fear of pumping gas into it. I'm so paranoid over this, I don't let my wife fill up the truck for me. (Of course, she doesn't mind relinquishing this bit of responsibility anyway).

    I'm glad you were able to rescue the situation for a minimal cost. I would be clueless how to do what you just described.

    I'm curious though? What did you do with all that gas you drain out of the truck?


    I gave it to my bud. He's going to burn it in his garden tractor.
  • RoyB's avatar
    RoyB
    Explorer II
    I guess the different size of hoses only protects you from putting Diesel fuel into a gas engine. Not the other way around...

    Roy Ken
  • I agree, the 'minimum' would have concerned me also. You made the best of a bad, and potentially expensive, situation.

    Thanks for sharing your experience.

    I'll bet your wife will never do that again.
  • Wow! That's quite a story. Ever since I owned my first diesel, I've had this horrid fear of pumping gas into it. I'm so paranoid over this, I don't let my wife fill up the truck for me. (Of course, she doesn't mind relinquishing this bit of responsibility anyway).

    I'm glad you were able to rescue the situation for a minimal cost. I would be clueless how to do what you just described.

    I'm curious though? What did you do with all that gas you drain out of the truck?