Thread: Petrol in a diesel ford rager

Managed to Pur half a tank of petrol in the 3.2 ranger last night heading out hunting. Drove it for 40 mins before realising this morning when it didn't want to start and coughed and spluttered and blew blue smoke.
Booked in on Thursday with ford to drain it out and clean out the lines.
Question for the mechanics out there...have I rooted it after driving for 40 mins or will it be able to be flushed out and carry on my merry way.
So friggin angry with my self. Such a stupid ballsup. Had the best day yesterday as well. Took the kids out rabbit shooting and my 9 yr old shot his first bunny. He was so nervous leading up to the shot. He's been practising hard at the range with the little metal spinner thing that I got him. Been a few chances bit he's missed a few and finally got one at 88 yards.
Anyway...the ranger is parked up till Thursday. No matter what happens I'm gonna get gouged by central ford over this for sure.

Unfortunately petrol into diesel is potentially far more damaging than diesel into petrol.
Fingers crossed.

Cost the father in law 6k in his Nissan.

as a mechanic i have cleaned out many with this problem, never seen any engine damage, only the cost of flushing system, new filters etc that adds up quickly.

If you've got engine damage its covered by your insurance.

Originally Posted by Brian

If you've got engine damage its covered by your insurance.

Just spoke with AMI and they said to get it assessed and make a claim if needed. Fingers crossed I don't need to go through the drama of making a claim.

Originally Posted by ONYVA

as a mechanic i have cleaned out many with this problem, never seen any engine damage, only the cost of flushing system, new filters etc that adds up quickly.

My experience as well. If you got that far with it chances are flushing it out will be all you need to do.

Did this to my old man’s diesel but realised it in time after 1/3 to 1/2 tank of petrol so topped up the tank with diesel, it was smokier than usual for a bit but that was all.
So MAYBE the emptying the tank, adding diesel and flushing the lines might be all you need?

Worst case scenario is it's taken a dislike to the injectors and the injection pump - if the injectors aren't happy there's a possibility that the tops of the pistons aren't your friends now too.

The petrol lowers the flash point of the diesel and reduces the lubricating qualities of the fuel - which is a bit of a problem with 2000Bar pressures in a common rail setup.

Ford quoted up replacing my injection pump, lines, common rail, fuel rail pressure sensor and injectors x 5 at just shy of 9 grand including labour - this was to fix the limp mode glitch which coincidentally happened at the same time as a bit of dirty fuel got into the thing somehow. What it turned out to be in my case was the fuel pressure modulation valve - $585 instead (not done by Ford). Lucky...

In your case, it will be a tank and lines flush, fuel filter replacement and then they can start to check everything else out. Hopefully it hasn't taken out the injectors and pump!

Just put petrol in my diesel first time this week, ended up about 50/50, put a couple of litres of two stroke oil in it and ran it, surged a bit going up the kaimais but slowly added more diesel as able and all good now

Drain tank
Chuck new diesel in, Crack fuel line on delivery side of fuel filter
Use hand primer pump to pump through, like 1000 pumps later, SEE IF DIESEL IS COMING THROUGH, easy way to tell pis by smell, and diesel leaves an oily residue when rubbed between fingers, Petrol evaporates clean, way to tell also if u put 2 stroke oil in or not for a 2stroke engine, tighten fuel line
Start up , see how she goes
U should be fine
DO NOT CRACK FUEL LINE AT INJECTOR , THE PRESSURE ON COMMON RAIL WILL CUT U TO FK

Originally Posted by Sharki

Drain tank
Chuck new diesel in, Crack fuel line on delivery side of fuel filter
Use hand primer pump to pump through, like 1000 pumps later, SEE IF DIESEL IS COMING THROUGH, easy way to tell pis by smell, and diesel leaves an oily residue when rubbed between fingers, Petrol evaporates clean, way to tell also if u put 2 stroke oil in or not for a 2stroke engine, tighten fuel line
Start up , see how she goes
U should be fine
DO NOT CRACK FUEL LINE AT INJECTOR , THE PRESSURE ON COMMON RAIL WILL CUT U TO FK

Does the system hold pressure between the injectors and the pump indefinitely? Not pressure up prior to starting?

Originally Posted by norsk

Does the system hold pressure between the injectors and the pump indefinitely? Not pressure up prior to starting?

Nope, engine stop is achieved by the fuel pressure modulation valve (what us not-Bosch mortals call a suction control valve) going to full open and dumping rail pressure back to the tank... This was the critter that stuffed my Ranger up - it was not opening correctly to release pressure off the common rail so that when you hit the top of a hill and throttle off, the common rail pressure was being told to drop back by the ECU (modulation valve commanded to open) but the valve wasn't opening - meaning the commanded pressure and actual pressure were different enough to trigger a limp mode alarm (fuel pressure out of specification).

The vehicle didn't have the usual symptoms of fuel injection failure (the issue I had was too much common rail pressure), which made us look a lot further into it spending a lot of time with a datalogger. Biggest issue is with the datalogger on, it played ball and behaved. Take the datalogger off, and it would trip an alarm and go into limp mode within minutes the stupid Ford thing...

Originally Posted by No.3

stupid Ford

Fixed it for you

Originally Posted by Kiwi Greg

Fixed it for you

A Mazda man hey?