BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram.

Posted By: Orange_Crush

BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/21/14 06:55 PM

My older brother lives in Costa Rica. His FIL owns a 2003 2500 Cummins Ram that he uses as a work truck. This truck has been ridden hard and probably has 150-200,000 miles on it. He has (according to him) recently developed an issue.

He says that he can fill the crankcase with oil, drive 10 miles, and the crankcase will be empty. In addition, there is diesel getting into the oil. If he pulls the oil fill cap off the valve cover and puts his hand over the hole with the engine running, his hand will be wet with diesel and the dipstick has diesel on it.

It sounds to me like (this being Costa Rica) the diesel tank at the gas station may have had gasoline in it, he ran it, and totally destroyed his pistons and valves causing uncontrolled oil burning which is sucking the diesel into the crankcase through the head.

Any thoughts?

Posted By: Orange_Crush

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/21/14 07:03 PM

I should add that the truck has no visible oil leaks.

Posted By: Challenger 1

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/21/14 07:47 PM

I doubt he ran gasoline in it because the truck won't run on gasoline. Sounds wore out of it's using oil like that to me.

Then I don't believe that all the oil is gone at 10 miles.

Posted By: 71yelladustr

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/21/14 08:00 PM

If there is fuel in the oil, I'd be looking for a bad injector(s).

Posted By: gtx6970

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/21/14 08:07 PM

12 or more qts of oil in 10 miles with no leaks ? and that thing would be smoking like a freight train

and if the rings were in fact that blown out , I would be suprised it ran at all

Posted By: Orange_Crush

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/21/14 08:15 PM

Quote:

12 or more qts of oil in 10 miles with no leaks ? and that thing would be smoking like a freight train

and if the rings were in fact that blown out , I would be suprised it ran at all

I have a feeling that there is some exaggeration there...but he says it's definitely losing lots of oil.

One more thing, there is a fair amount of positive pressure in the crankcase. He can feel it blowing air out of the oil fill.

I'm wondering if it isn't a combination of bad rings and a stuck injector.

Posted By: an8sec70cuda

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/21/14 08:19 PM

Or a piston that's melted.

Posted By: Grizzly

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/21/14 08:20 PM

Quote:

He says that he can fill the crankcase with oil, drive 10 miles, and the crankcase will be empty.

Any thoughts?

If they can't see where a trail of 4 gallons of oil in 10 minutes is coming out of that thing, then they shouldn't be behind the wheel.

At any rate it sounds like a wiped cylinder.

Posted By: John_Kunkel

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/21/14 08:57 PM

A faulty turbo seal would explain the oil consumption but not the diesel in the oil.

Posted By: JohnRR

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/21/14 09:40 PM

Quote:

A faulty turbo seal would explain the oil consumption but not the diesel in the oil.

Posted By: stumpy

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/21/14 11:35 PM

Wouldn't that cause a runaway?

Posted By: skicker

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/22/14 12:48 AM

Quote:

12 or more qts of oil in 10 miles with no leaks ? and that thing would be smoking like a freight train

Sure kind of throws a wrench in my theory. I've got 232K on mine, oil gets changed every 8K or so. Being that it is 12+ qts I have never pulled the dipstick to check it. It doesn't smoke and it doesn't leak so I figured it would never be low.

May have to rethink that one after reading this...

Posted By: Challenger 1

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/22/14 02:51 AM

He might want to check his fuel tank for motor oil, it could get pumped in there if the injectors are fired with oil pressure and a o ring goes bad.

Posted By: feets

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/22/14 05:42 PM

Quote:

He might want to check his fuel tank for motor oil, it could get pumped in there if the injectors are fired with oil pressure and a o ring goes bad.

The 5.9 does not use oil fired injectors.

Posted By: 383man

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/23/14 04:17 AM

Quote:

Quote:

12 or more qts of oil in 10 miles with no leaks ? and that thing would be smoking like a freight train

and if the rings were in fact that blown out , I would be suprised it ran at all

I have a feeling that there is some exaggeration there...but he says it's definitely losing lots of oil.

One more thing, there is a fair amount of positive pressure in the crankcase. He can feel it blowing air out of the oil fill.

I'm wondering if it isn't a combination of bad rings and a stuck injector.

Pressure in the crankcase like that says a ring or piston gone way south. I remember the 2.2 tubo cars would blow the turbo seal and use oil like crazy but they would also smoke out the shop when you pulled it in the shop. Ron

Posted By: SNK-EYZ

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/23/14 10:41 AM

Quote:

I doubt he ran gasoline in it because the truck won't run on gasoline. Sounds wore out of it's using oil like that to me.

Then I don't believe that all the oil is gone at 10 miles.

Actually they will run on gasoline but really really badly.
On rare occasions when they had a new operator at fuel fill on the assembly line they would put in 8 gallons of gasoline in a diesel truck and it would get started on it at the Huntsville test (electrical test).
They rattled really loud but ran.
They shut them off fairly quickly, 30 seconds to a minute run time.
They were then were pushed off the end of the line to repair.
The fuel tank was drained, then replaced and then they filled with diesel fuel and were restarted and the Huntsville test was run.

The engineers said the short run on gasoline didn't hurt them.

Eventually they set up the fuel fill system to eliminate the chance of that happening by having to scan the truck being fuel filled.
It wouldn't allow you to pump the wrong fuel into a truck after it was scanned.
It would shut down the line if you did try which required a restart by the section line supervisor.

If it was run on 87 octane gasoline for any real length of time it would be really bad.

Posted By: fastmark

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/23/14 02:15 PM

These motors are real bad about an injector going bad and putting so much fuel into the cly that it will burn a hole in the piston or melt the rings. Sounds like to me, that is the problem.

Posted By: 71yelladustr

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/23/14 08:40 PM

The 325 hp engines are WAY more likely to burn a piston than the earlier 305 hp engines. Not saying it hasn't but it is not as common for sure. The piston has a lot more "meat" around the bowl area on a 305 hp. Usually if it has burned a piston it will pulse the blowby out of the oil cap with the engine running and have a miss. You will also hear uneven cranking of the engine when trying to start the truck. The source of the fuel leak still needs to be addressed first.If you are the adventurous type, You can remove the valvecover with the engine idling to look for a fuel injector leaking into the crankcase. If no fuel leak is found initially, you may have to ramp up the fuel pressure to find the leak. This can be done by disconnecting the Fuel control actuator plug on the high pressure pump. Unplug the FCA with the engine off. By doing this the fuel pressure will be at max operating levels and the leak will be very easy to spot. Look for it to steam or fog fuel around the bad injector. Before restarting the engine with the FCA unplugged, Be sure to stand back away from the engine as it can be messy and dangerous. Have someone in the truck that can shut the engine off quickly if needed. Disclaimer: BE VERY careful if you attempt to do this. The fuel will be under extreme pressure and can hurt or even kill you if you are too close.

Posted By: Orange_Crush

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/23/14 09:50 PM

Thanks for the advice, everybody.

As I said, the truck is in Costa Rica so who knows what it could be! I basically repeated all of the advice here to him and he says he'll let me know when he finds something out.

Posted By: WayneM

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/25/14 12:23 AM

Quote:

The 325 hp engines are WAY more likely to burn a piston than the earlier 305 hp engines. Not saying it hasn't but it is not as common for sure. The piston has a lot more "meat" around the bowl area on a 305 hp. Usually if it has burned a piston it will pulse the blowby out of the oil cap with the engine running and have a miss. You will also hear uneven cranking of the engine when trying to start the truck. The source of the fuel leak still needs to be addressed first.If you are the adventurous type, You can remove the valvecover with the engine idling to look for a fuel injector leaking into the crankcase. If no fuel leak is found initially, you may have to ramp up the fuel pressure to find the leak. This can be done by disconnecting the Fuel control actuator plug on the high pressure pump. Unplug the FCA with the engine off. By doing this the fuel pressure will be at max operating levels and the leak will be very easy to spot. Look for it to steam or fog fuel around the bad injector. Before restarting the engine with the FCA unplugged, Be sure to stand back away from the engine as it can be messy and dangerous. Have someone in the truck that can shut the engine off quickly if needed. Disclaimer: BE VERY careful if you attempt to do this. The fuel will be under extreme pressure and can hurt or even kill you if you are too close.

You're nuts.

This thread is outta control.

Posted By: 71yelladustr

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/25/14 12:49 AM

Please explain how I'm nuts? I work on these trucks everyday. I have done this many times to quickly find a fuel in oil problem. Other than taking all of the injectors out and sending them off to be checked there isn't much he will be able to do. He might be able to dye the fuel and use a blacklight, but you are still going to have to run the engine with valve cover off to see the problem. Please keep in mind the OP's relative is somewhere that there is likely no place that he can take the truck to be fixed.

Posted By: WayneM

Re: BIZARRE Problem With A 2003 Cummins Ram. - 10/25/14 09:15 PM

Quote:

Please explain how I'm nuts? I work on these trucks everyday. I have done this many times to quickly find a fuel in oil problem. Other than taking all of the injectors out and sending them off to be checked there isn't much he will be able to do. He might be able to dye the fuel and use a blacklight, but you are still going to have to run the engine with valve cover off to see the problem. Please keep in mind the OP's relative is somewhere that there is likely no place that he can take the truck to be fixed.

I'm quite aware of the proximity of the op's relatives vehicle. This is what makes it almost impossible to help. To suggest that they abuse high mileage parts is crazy.
There are other tactics. To start, is the MIL on? If so the code may be a misfire or other that will help diagnosis greatly. There are fuel return volume tests thats done with some special fittings that are affordable. The crossover tubes can be removed, checked for damage, and reinstalled PROPERLY. These are some better ideas.