I have a Ford F550 diesel super duty. Yesterday I was going to change the oil. I had a worker assist me - I am certain he helped me change oil before. I got a drain pan and had him hop under the truck to remove the oil pan bolt. We drained the "oil" , We removed the old filter and replaced the filter. It didn't seem to me as though enough oil came out and I though wow it could have been that low. Today i was going to make a deliver with this truck about 60 miles away. I was running late and had called and left a message for the owner telling him I would be late. I left and got about 5 miles down the road= the owner called and said that it would be better next week than this evening. I was close to a farm market (couple hundred feet) and swung in to get some tomatoes. The truck had been running well. When I first started it and put it into gear it had hesitated for a minute and then i took off just fine. I got tomatoes and drove back home. On the way back it was running rough it seemed like it was surging. I could not tell if it was the engine or the transmission. When I got back home I parked the vehicle and noticed fluid leaking. I looked under the truck and there was fluid leaking , but it looked like trans fluid. I then saw that the transmission nut had been removed and replaced, but the oil nut had not ! My employee drained the transmission fluid instead of the oil. The transmission was out of oil and the engine had twice as much oil as it should. I drained the engine oil and replaced the filter. I went to auto parts and got Ford transmission fluid and refilled the transmission. I started the truck and the engine sounded okay. Maybe a little louder than normal. I hopped into the truck and drove it out of town about a mile and a half and back- it drove just fine. I let it run for a while and it sounded fairly normal. Did I dodge a bullet or is the worse yet to come? If the worse is yet to come - what can I do to keep it from being catastrophic. This engine was a rebuilt Jasper with about 50000 mile on it. The engine was bullet proofed when the jasper engine was installed. The last time I changed the oil was 7500 miles ago or so. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

 

wow unusual story, wonder if you should pull transmission pan and look for loose material and change filter. hopefully the transmission held enough fluid even when drained to provide lubrication. i would imagine the converter holds a fare mount of fluid that didn't get drained.

also not related but my mechanic doesn't like to see over 5K b/w oil changes no matter what oil is used. u might want to look for other oil change interval recommendations

 

Thank you very much. I Will pull the pan and check. have a great night.

 

I’d drive it for a little bit and check and smell the tranny fluid. If it smells burned, IF it does you basically have shortened the life of the tranny at that point. How much? All depends on what you do with it and how you drive it. Under load it may start slipping if pulling type deal.

Second I’d check spark plugs. Excess oil may of started to foil them up to a degree. If one looks clean I’d skip it and leave them in. If they look fouled up from excess foaming oil I’d be a little concerned about a clogged or very dirty CAT. Replace the plugs if they look fouled obviously. For the cat just pay attention to how it runs. If it starts running “weird” you can go get a free backpressure test from most exhaust shops to check for a clogged cat.

Also pay attention from now on and see if anything starts leaking oil. All that pressure may of weakened or blown some gaskets as it didn’t have anywhere to go. I’d park it where I could see if it has fresh drops under it.

EDIT- if you really wanted to you could buy a cheap iPhone/android camera bore scope plug in and look at the cross thatching on the cylinder walls and try to get engine pictures of what your thatching should look like for your mileage on it.

sorry for grammar spelling on my phone

 

Diesel engines do not have any spark plugs.

 

@JPollard

What model year is your F-550?

Knowing the model year would help others help you, because Ford has used four different diesel engines within the 1999-2016 range of model years that this forum covers, and there are some idiosyncrasies that are specific to each of the four different engines. (7.3L, 6.0L, 6.4L, 6.7L). Likewise, there are three different automatic transmissions that Ford offered within this model year range. (4R100, 5R110W, 6R140). Since your real concern is your transmission, better advise might be available if people knew which transmission you have, and that would be determinable by model year.

 

I would be more worried about my engine, than the transmission.
LUCKILY you only drove 5 miles each way, 10 mile round trip.

I would take it to reputable trans shop, and have all fluid changed, filter, pan gasket, and have the torque convertor fluid extracted also.

Nothing you can do about it now, except never let other non-professionals touch your vehicles. Talk about dodging a bullet!

 

So you changed the oil and filled it and never pulled the dipstick to check the level after you filled it? That would have told you the engine was overfilled. It sounds like maybe you should take it somewhere to have it serviced.

 

​​​​​​​I'm going to go out on a limb to say the OP likely has the 6.0L diesel, which would mean it has the 5R110W transmission. If I'm not mistaken, draining the transmission pan would require about seven to eight litres of transmission fluid to refill back to specification. Total fluid capacity is about 16 to 18 litres of I recall correctly.