What are signs of gasoline or bad fuel ?

vstech

Member
2003 om612 sprinter...


I was above 1/4 tank, filled up.
Truck drove fine that afternoon. Later in the day, I stopped and let truck idle a few minutes... huge cloud of black smoke and weak acceleration away from stop, parked an hour, smoked on startup, but drove home 59 miles fine.

Next morning drove fine to work about 40 miles, then started getting sluggish and very Smokey.

Have to manually shift, no power, lots of black smoke.

I pulled air filter and shook the sand etc out of it... No change...
Drove to AutoZone, no codes stored... but as I left store, the check engine light came on...


Worried...

Thoughts?
 

autostaretx

Erratic Member
Drove to AutoZone, no codes stored... but as I left store, the check engine light came on...

Thoughts?
It's too bad you didn't make a U-turn and go back and check the codes ... if the CEL is on, there will be codes.

(but i do understand how time pressures mean you really can't take that extra time)

Black smoke is usually (far) too much fuel... it could be a leaky injector (dirt clogging the shut-off valve?)

Check your oil level to see that you're not suddenly over-full (or low), over-full being caused by fuel washing down the cylinder wall(s) and filling the crankcase. Fuel is a poor ring lubricant.

--dick
 

kayakkingoz

Active member
I would not drive it till problem is found. Sounds like it could go nasty easily
You would smell gasoline at the fill point.
Change fuel filter. Empty old filter into a container & take a look if anything is in the fuel
Pull plastic cover off top of engine & make sure its not leaking injector there (Black death)
 
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vstech

Member
I have NOT driven it since this morning...

Over 100F today! Not taking anything else apart till it cools down outside a bit...

I will check my fuel receipt to confirm I bought diesel... then I will pull filter and confirm what is in it...

I have a powered lift pump, so repriming or sampling tank isn't a problem...


What are the symptoms of Black Death?
 

220629

Well-known member
...
You would smell gasoline at the fill point.
...
I could still smell petrol at about 2% concentration. As a practical matter anything 5% concentration and lower should not cause black smoke and operating problems. It could affect lubricity to the point of causing some problems over the long term.

If you can't easily smell gasoline at the filler neck, that is probably not the issue.

...

136 miles added 5.4 gallons diesel fuel.
@ approx. 1.9% concentration I had 0.38 gallons.
The added 5.4 gallons diluted me down to around 1.5% petrol.
Added some glugs of 2 cycle TCW3 oil (big bottle), then added a couple more.

Interestingly I can still smell petrol at the fuel fill neck with that approx. 2% concentration. I'm surprised at how many 5 gallon fills it's taken to get to 1.5%. Checking the gross math it basically works out though. (Math is not my strong suit.) I started with about 3.6% concentration at 25 gallons. After adding about 20 gallons of new fuel I'm at about 1.5% now. Rough numbers I know. Anyway, that helps show what it takes to dilute out a tank of bad fuel.

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As always, clicking the blue arrow icon within the quote box will take you to the original thread.


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I will check my fuel receipt to confirm I bought diesel... then I will pull filter and confirm what is in it...

...
You may have a fuel contamination issues, but if you had pumped gasoline the operating problems would likely be much worse.

Dumping sand from the air filter may indicate it's time to consider a new filter.

vic
 

autostaretx

Erratic Member
Black Death is a leak under the glow plug (or injector, i forget which) seal which allows combustion gasses to leak out under the plastic top-of-engine injector cover.
Remove the cover (the rear screw can be challenging) and look for baked-on black build-up rising up from the plug wells.

There are lots of photos of it here in the forum, i doubt it would create smoke (out the tail pipe)

--dick
 

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