06RAMCTD

I ran out of fuel on the highway the other day even though the DTE gauge was telling me I had 40 miles to go. The yellow light on the fuel gauge was "ON" for 30 miles or so.

Once I put more fuel in it and primed the system, she cranked right up.

Question: did I hose anything by running it out of fuel?
Or is it nothing to be worried about?

forwardho

You should be OK as long as your fuel tank is clean.
I have done it twice . You will get some codes, but they will clear in time. If you lose power, try changing the fuel filter. You did no harm.

fitzydog

i'm sorry but whether you were broke or not don't let these things run below a quarter of a tank consistently. keep pressure on the lift pump and such. plus trash at the bottom of the tank. I would use some injector cleaner like powerservice or something as well. aaron

bluebull

I always chuckle when people bring up the you sucked all kinds of crude up your fuel system by letting it run out of fuel or low on fuel. That's a thing from yesteryear when they use to use sediment bowls and let the sediment bowl get too full of crude. How old myths linger for decades.

Where do you suppose the fuel in sucked from all the time, the top of the tank!! There are no baffles in you fuel tank to prevent fuel sloshing around so it's continuously being stirred anyhow.

The part about keeping your fuel tank at least 1/4 full is for the 2003-2004.5 trucks that have external lift pumps. In this case it gets harder on the lift pump to pull full if the tank gets too low.

Another reason to keep your tank as close to full all the time is if you live or drive in fluctuating temperatures from freezing to above freezing. In this case condensation forms easier on bare surface in your fuel tank. Remember, even though our tanks are closed cell tank they still have to replace fuel from the tank with air as the fuel is being used.

Your cp3 injection pump should be just fine even if you run it out of fuel. The damage that occures to a cp3 is from fuel starvation over a long period of time as in a week lift pump. The cp3 will feed itself for lubricity before it feeds itself for injection purposes so when you run out of fuel you just simply run out of fuel. Now if your truck lost power for thousands of miles and you didn't know it then you probably damaged the cp3 some what but just running out of fuel should not damage it.

dehunter12

I don't know about you all but my truck came with this thing called a
fuel filter, hince the name fuel filter. Sorry I just had to throw that in.

fitzydog

bluebull do us a favor and run your truck as close to empty as possible for the next couple of months or so and report back to us your findings. I am curious to see the out come. later

bluebull

Why?? I've already explained to you the how and why......................Oh I have a couple of times once when I wanted to see how far my truck would go before running out of fuel. 32.5 gallons in a 34 gallon tank close enough.

How about the time I did my fuel tank vent modification. When I pulled the tank and drained it there was about a half gallon of fuel left in the tank is that close enough.

By the way there was absolutely nothing in the bottom of the tank either and the truck had about 13,000 miles of winter and summer driving.

06RAMCTD

I have, since the truck was new, run the tank down to well below 1/4 and have not experienced any issues what so ever. I usually fill up just prior to or just after the low fuel light comes on. The DTE gauge has, in the past, notified me of "low fuel" when it gets really low but I've only run it down this low 3 or 4 times. This is the first time I've run out as well as the first time the DTE didn't let me know the fuel level was that low.

I always use Power Service and MMO in every tank just for the added lubricity they provide.

As someone else pointed out, running below a 1/4 tank won't suck up any more crap that running at full. If there is **** in the bottom of the tank, you are gonna pull it through no matter what.

I just wanted to make sure the CP3 and fuel pump were gonna be OK and that nothing else could have been harmed.

Thanks for the input!

billie

I don't run below a 1/4 only to keep the fuel pump cool. Probably doesn't do anything but seems to make sense to me.

My dad always said "you only need half a tank, just make sure its the top half!"

And the crud in the bottom of the tank is a myth.

Cya

DaveB.inVa

When I put my Glacier pump on I got a good look at the innards of the fuel tank. It was very clean. Much cleaner than I thought it would be. Id say it got dirtier from me messing with it than from all the diesel I've ran.

Truthfully the last tractor I looked in was pretty clean too. The contamination in its tank certainly wasn't from the diesel.