Bad Fuel, What did i do ??

[Odp]

Hello all.
I have a 2005 ram 2500 auto. After the hurrican down here in Tx deisel was hard to get ahold of for about a week. I keep a 250-gallon fuel tank on the property for filling up equipment. I put ten gallons into my truck so i could move it up to the house. about 200 yards away. The truck ran fine and first but by the time i made my way up to the house it was missing really bad, knocking and smoking white smoke that burned your eyes out the pipe. So i figured it was water in the fuel. Drained the filter assy and tried to restart, same issue. So i removed the tank, sucked all the fuel out of it, inspected the screen on the lift pump for algae ect. ( lift pump is about 6 months old ) looked clean, nothing on the screen ect. Wiped the tank out really good and let it air dry for the day. Removed the fuel filter and the lines to the housing and blew back towards the tank with my air blower to remove what was in the lines. Installed the tank, new filter and fresh fuel from the station. ( this was about two weeks after the fact) Started the unit up, smoke is gone but it was knocking bad, check engine light came on with code P0088 fuel rail pressure to high. poked around on the forum and found that most people replace the FCA and it solves the problem. Mine is stock with 258k on it. So i bought a new bosch FCA from my local supplier. Put on the new FCA last night. The truck would not start after install. It spins over all day long and sounds like it is about to take off but never does. So once i pulled the codes P0088 is back and it now it also has P0251 injection pump fuel metering control A cam/rotor/ injector logged. I did not have this before i replaced the FCA. So after reading some more threads on here i unpluged the new FCA, truck fires right up but runs kinda ruff. I removed the new fca thinging maybe i messed up the oring or something on install. it looked good no damage. So i put it back in. all the same sytoms remain. both codes and no start. Anythoughts on what might be my issue ?? i ran the truck oin total about 4 minutes once i out fuel in it from my tank. i run this same fuel in my equipment with not ill effects all be it, its older stuff.
thanks

 

[cerberusiam]

P0251 is for an FCA problem, open, shorted, etc. The P0088 is probably due to the FCA not functioning correctly. If you have the same problem with 2 FCA's I would start checking wiring and make sure the harness is not compromised somewhere then check all the battery connections and grounds. These codes can have multiple sources, one being bad battery connections.

 

[Odp]

Thanks for the reply cerberusiam. Ill check the wiring and the battery connections tonight. i was leaning more towards the injection system since the truck ran fine right up till i put fuel in it. ill sure check connections like you suggested. id love for it to be a bad wire and easy cheap fix.

 

[MichaelOverfield]

Are your injectors original at 258K? If so that could be an issue also. It's possible the timing with the old fuel is coincidental with that many miles, things can happen. Do you have additional filtration over the stock filter? If not you might want to consider some, it's pretty cheap insurance for really expensive fuel system parts. You may not have visible bad fuel, it does not take much, there could have been some contamination that started this problem as well. Most diesel equipment is much more tolerant of contamination than these high pressure common rail systems. I actually burn old motor oil as fuel in my Diesel tractor, I'd never consider doing that for the truck!

 

[Odp]

Yes i still have the original injectors. Only thing i have ever changed on its since its been new has been the oil, one water pump, one set of batteries and one very expensive transmission. Do injectors on these trucks just up and fail ? I dont drive the truck but maybe once or twice a month these days and it has been running rock solid right up until this. I have not had a chance to check the wiring on the fca yet but my batteries look good..all tight and clean no corrosion etc. I keep the sprayed with terminal protector as well as the rest of my equipment since it sees about the same infrequent use. I guess at this point im open to all possible failures since it is getting up there in years and miles.

 

[cerberusiam]

If you do not drive it much that doesn't help. Yes, an injector can just up and fail with no warning with the symptoms you described. Water in the fuel is usually low power, rough running, but not white smoke, missing, and knocking. That is a hung injector, might be precipitated by water in the fuel or just the fact it sits to much. Then of course it got drowned by a hurricane and days of damp weather. It could be water in the fuel, moisture in the wiring, or moisture in the injection system form just ambient humidity. The codes indicate an electrical issue, the symptoms a mechanical issue. You probably have a couple sources of the problems to track down.

 

[Odp]

Hello guys. So i finally got back to this project after putting it on the back burner and my daughter getting her licences and wanting " her" truck. So after talking and reading the forum i decided to try two things. Bought a new fca. No dice. Did the overflow valve block off. So when i unplug the fca the truck cranks but really knocks as to be expected. Plug the fca in while its running and the exhaust puts out a hollow sound and white smoke. Im about to tow it off to a shop. But damn i hate throwing in the towel. Any thoughts.

 

[cerberusiam]

Time for injectors.

 

[Odp]

Thanks for the responce. I was leaning that way. Guess its time to spend the money.

 

[Ozymandias]

are you sure your barrel contained diesel and not gasoline?
gasoline would fit perfectly for your problem, it destroys a railsystem within seconds.
even 1 gallon in a 50 gallon Tank does it.
if that happen the hpcr pump fails first.

 

[Odp]

Yeah it was diesel. Have not a gas engine around here in years.

 

[Missouri Mule]

Did the tank have water in it. Or were you out of the path of it.
Water in air filter? Blown head gasket?. How many miles on truck?
Re read thread. Driving it not much not good.
If you do not start it up every week you run into the problem of spinning a bearing or throwing a rod if it sits a few months. If does sit along time you need to bump the starter a few times.

 

[Odp]

So i finally got around to working on this thing. Got tired of seeing it sitting around. Took the tank out. Sucked the fuel out. Flushed it out. Blew out all my lines. Drained the fuel bowl. Changed filter. Installed new reman injectors, tubes, lines. I removed the line that feeds the rail. Blew air into the rail while all the lines where off. Left the line from the cp3 off and cranked it over a good couple of times to purge the cp3. This is all redundant since i did this all before i changed injectors. Truck fired up and ran like crap. Just like it did before. Then boom about 20 minutes later it was running like a raped ape. No smoke no nothing. Beautiful. Then boom. Clouds of white smoke, missing and back to square one. I dont even have a check engine light on. Thought maybe bad harness ? Wiggled and jiggled. Nothing changes.

 

[MichaelOverfield]

White smoke.. interesting. Found this description for white smoke. Mine does some white smoke when it's cold, before it warms up, and it can fluctuate based on some computer adjustments that appear to be taking place.
"White: A light color smoke often indicates that very little fuel is burning or your truck is not burning any fuel at all. This can also mean that your vehicle is too cold or that coolant has made its way into the combustion chamber. Check whether your chamber is actually heating the fuel and if there are any cracks letting coolant seep out."

https://www.dieselogic.com/blog/201...ks-exhaust-smoke-color-is-trying-to-tell-you/

 

[MichaelOverfield]

and this: "
WHITE SMOKE

White smoke often occurs when there is either too much fuel being injected into the combustion chamber, or not enough heat to burn the fuel. Un-burned fuel travels through the exhaust system & exits out the tailpipe which will produce a scent of rich, un-burnt diesel. Other causes of white smoke include lack of compression, or water/coolant entering the combustion chamber."

https://www.injectorsdirect.com/does-white-smoke-mean-injector-problems/

 

[MichaelOverfield]

I would suspect the reman injectors.. one is likely sticking. My neighbor had all kinds of problems with some reman injectors he put in his powerstroke, and still has one that is screwed up. I found this thread: https://www.dieseltruckresource.com...es-white-smoke-first-morning-start-up-274423/

 

[MichaelOverfield]

I know why mine does it a bit on start up, it's likely trying to heat up the DPF (post injection).. that is a longer story, but it soon realizes the DPF is plenty warm already and stops... I may need to invest in a specific tune to eliminate that problem..