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When not to drain the water separator

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Old 01-21-2008, 08:45 PM
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When not to drain the water separator

Don't know what I was thinking, but I took the truck to work today as the wife wanted the car. The truck hadn't been used for a few days, so I thought good time to drain the water separator. Only problem was that the brain didn't clue into the fact that it was -2c

So... all I really did was drain off a little fuel. Closed the lever & fired up the truck. After a minute or so I decided to drive off to work..... I pull into work and open the door..... wow! sure smells like raw diesel. I hop out and there is already a big puddle on the ground. Oh oh. There's also a nice trail on the road and parking lot. There's a shop 2 businesses away, so I fire it up again and quickly drive it there & leave it on the street and explain to them what's up.

Turns out that I had closed the lever OK, but the plunger hadn't seated properly.... the mechanic fixed the problem quickly (I'm sure that I could have done it, but I wasn't about to get the office clothes messed up) and primed the filter again before firing it up (he has the sister truck... same year, etc. and bought from the same used truck dealer - go figure).

Charge for their inconvenience & my stupidness.... nothing ....unless you count all of the liters of diesel that I lost. Good thing I'm only about 2 miles from work (which is why I rarely drive it to work).
Old 01-21-2008, 08:59 PM
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I just had the same thing happen to me, replaced my lift pump and filter, drained it off and flipped the switch, looked in the mirror as I was drivin off and seen the trail of yellow in the snow, not a big deal, but dumped several gallons a pricey diesel..
Old 01-21-2008, 09:36 PM
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I suppose this shows that the lift pump is running
Old 01-21-2008, 09:40 PM
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Do you know what your fuel pressure was while you were driving? A pre-filter leak like that is bound to drop post-filter pressure quite a bit.
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