I'm usually over on the 1st Gen side, but I also have an '01
Last week I made a 150 mile roundtrip to pick up a car in NC. Somewhere along the way, my puke bottle came completely off. Since then I've replaced it with a 3/4" PVC flexible tubing that hangs straight down, like others here have done.
But judging by the amount of oil on my engine, I probably lost a few ounces of oil on that trip
I live in the mountains, but this trip was only the hills of NC. Is that normal, or is this a sign that I've got problems coming in the future?

 

Mine seemed to vapor out a bit between changes, the PB usually had a tablespoon of muck in the bottom of it and water up to the holes, probably from condensation.

Since I r/r'd the PB and ran the hose back to the rear of the trans, I will only see a drop when parked uphill....

I little is normal I would say.

 

They say to empty it at every oil change. Mine is ran down to my sway bar and it maybe drips once or twice after driving. Mine must of been done for a long time cause my front end has oil on it(like its been oil sprayed) On a positive note there is no rust on on of my front end parts

 

Thanks. Seems like a lot on mine, but it could have sprayed when the bottle came off too. I'll have to keep an eye on it.

 

Hopefully you still dont have the bottle located in the OEM position.

 

What the heck is a puke bottle? As an airplane guy I know what a puke bag is for sure Does my 95 have one and where does it collect the puke from?

 

That would be the dealer-optioned CAOS, or Cummins Automatic Oil-undercoating System.

 

THe "puke bottle" is the name given to the catch bottle located on the end of the engine blowby vent hose. For whatever reason right now, I can seem to remember which years had this but its only something seen on open loop emission system Cummins, and on a few years this blowby vent hose is located right on the front of the engine between the front of the engine and the radiator.

You hear of guys relocating the puke bottle but what they're really doing is getting rid of the bottle all together and extending the vent hose to farther under the engine or back behind the engine. The reason for this is because the engine fan will cause all that oily blowby to circulate back into the radiator which will then attract dirt and debris to collect on and in the radiator fins, leading to significant reduction in air flow.

 

My Ram even when new showed a coat of oil all over the front just from the vapor as I always dumped the bottle it at oil changes. I ran a 3/4" hose all the way back to beneath and to the side of the license plate. The white steam and smoke exiting the hose in the winter keeps the tailgaters back...

 

I think the amount depends on the type of driving. Before I relocated mine, I puked more oil when I was pulling my 12,000lbs trailer. Bigger load = more oil? That's my experience anyhow.

 

Bigger load means more boost and more internal cylinder pressure which means more crank case pressure.

 

I'm getting enough oil coming out of my hose (I removed the bottle a while back) to put oil spots on my rear bumper and my trailer.
I use mine more with a trailer with a car on it than I do empty.
Is this a sign of something going wrong?
Last time I pulled a trailer, I stopped for a few minutes in a parking lot and while with the truck at an idle I noticed a puddle about 8" in diameter under the hose in just 15 minutes or so.

 

Well.....usually people experience a drop or two every now and then. To see a puddle is not normal. What you may want to look for is 1) making sure that the hose extension you added awhile back is NOT drooping anywhere enough which would allow the collected blowby gas oils to puddle within the hose over time. Not only can that collected oil puddling in the hose cause venting blockage and do damage to engine seals, but then if you happen to park at an angle where the hose is allowed to all drain out at once, you'll get a puddle of oil on the ground. And 2) make sure you're not overfilling the engine with oil because the timing gears will simply carry it up and push it out the vent hose. Those are the two obvious things to look for first.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, but:
1) the hose I added is pretty much straight down, so no puddles and it's not blocked.
2) oil level is actually a little low. I haven't added because I'm due for an oil change.

 

The only other thing I would look at is a possible vacuum leak. If you have a vacuum leak anywhere in the system then the vacuum pump will pump overtime all that air into the crankcase. Usually its noticed by an excessive amount of vapor coming from the vent tube but certainly I may also push out some additional oil.
The only other variable which causes more blowby is worn cylinder rings or.....or not fully seated rings. If you have less than 100k on your engine then it could be unseated rings, but if you have many many hundreds of thousands and oil changes are the least of concerns then it may be worn rings.