My buddy has ran a tank though his 99 24v cummins with about a 50/50 misture and never had any side effects and the MPG was no diffrent. We got the fluid from a local delership and filtered it out (it was used fluid). Our friend at the deler says hes been doing it for years and never had any problems but he tends to bend the truth a bit. And we would not of tried it but he put 15 gallons in his own truck right infront of us and then drove it right off the lot and headed home. Truck is stock, nothing has been changed with the motor or anything else.

Any input? Anyone else done this and how did it turn out?

 

I personally would not use ATF in my fuel tank. ATF was not designed to burn.

 

He says its something with the comperession ratio of a diesel that allows him to do it.. Im no mechanic I just figured i'd ask and see if anyone else has tried it. I have a gas burner so it makes no diffrence to me but I am curious

 

I have been told that the trans fluid has additives in it that are not supposed to be good for the newer engines. Also ATF is red and so is off-road diesel so if your buddy or anyone else gets stopped with it, then it could get ugly really fast with fines! I personally wouldn't risk messing up my motor or my injection pump for some cheap fuel. I did it once when I ran Kero and won't do it again.

 

what idiot would take a chance like that with their rig? Sounds pretty elementary that ATF might not work as well as diesel, or even veg oil. I'll stick to pump fuel...

 

Yea I know about the Red fuel (I Own a Tow truck so I know all about the farm diesel) and so does he. He said the only thing to look out for is possibly messing up the injector pump since its thicker then diesel.

Call him an Idiot but hes been doing it for years... Even if he only used a few gallons each tank it can really add up fast espically with gas prices and if you work at a stealership you already got the hookup on a new motor incase something went wrong.

And im not telling or advising anyone to try this on there own truck, I was just curious if anyone else had done this before or still did and what results they had.

 

I'll throw in my experience with it for ya. As a diesel tech for Ford, I've learned quite a bit about running ATF in diesels. I do it all the time with trucks at work with absolutely no side effects. When I get a truck that comes in with bad fuel or gas in it(a very common problem), I hook up our injector flusher and run ATF through to get all the bad stuff out. Now my disclaimer to this is that these are Powerstrokes with HUEI fuel systems not injection pump or HPCR fuel systems. The HUEI systems are very forgiving when it comes to the fuel side of it, minus injectors on a 6.0. The oil side of them is not so much. So as far as the cummins goes, 24v or a HPCR motor, I can't really say what the side effects might be.

 

Just out of curiousity why do you flush it with atf and not just clean diesel?

 

Hi been using ATF in my 1994 12 valve for many years, two -three qts every full tank, keeps your injector pump running smooth Grumpy John 4X4

 

Because ATF is more easily accessible. If I was to use diesel, I would have to go and get the dealerships gas card and go to a pump just to get a single gallon of diesel. Takes way too much time vs. the ATF. ATF I can just go and grab four quarts of it from the parts counter and thats it. Plus ATF adds a little more lubrication than regular diesel and I can tell when its run all the way through the fuel system and back through the return because of it being red.