Does anyone know where the piss tank on a 2008 Dodge Ram diesel is?

Really. It has one.

We needed a one-ton pickup for work-related heavy towing (we're going to start hauling smaller tactical vehicles to our shop so the Army doesn't have to cut a sergeant and a private loose for half a day to do it), so we bought a Dodge Ram 3500 with Cummins BlueTec diesel engine. I wondered what the "BlueTec" thing was about, and found out.

The BlueTec system cuts down diesel emissions, especially oxides of nitrogen, to exceptionally low levels. It uses piezo injectors for pinpoint control of fuel inlet, plus a particulate filter and three catalytic converters. Diesels never had catalytic converters before because diesel exhaust is all wrong for a cat to be effective on it, so they modify the smoke by injecting a measured amount of "AUS32"--Aqueous Urea Solution, 32.5% strength--into the exhaust stream between the catalytic converters. Neat technology if you can keep solution in it, but the tank it goes in is nowhere to be found. We popped the hood and didn't find it. We crawled under the truck and found the three cats, the particulate separator, the piss lines (they're stainless steel--very hard to miss) and the piss valve, but we can't find the tank the synthetic urine goes in--and not for lack of looking. Obviously you can't just pee in it, but if it comes down to it we can always buy some reagent-grade urea from Hexion Specialty Chemicals and mix it with distilled water in the proper ratio--that is, if the aftermarket doesn't start selling AUS32 before the warranty on this truck runs out. (Then again...how much does a manufacturing line for diesel pee cost? Sounds like a New Business Opportunity to me.) This truck's almost acceptable to progressives if you can get past the 17mpg part.

Anyone got any suggestions?

the "piss lines" and the "piss tank" for peeing or fueling the truck? Pardon my ignorance! :-)

Google has helped Mr Delphi and self work on the Toyota Paseo.

IF the general google won't help, sometimes specifiying the "groups" and then having your search terms hit the Google Groups might do it. (Look for the "more" key and then you will find groups under that menu's pulldown list.)

Our use of groups got us advice, and people who could link us to the tech drawings etc

It was invaluable.

I didn't find the location of the tank, but I did find a UK transport drivers' board, on which someone commented that because this system is mandatory on all new heavy-duty diesels in Europe, the lines outside the men's room at truck stops all over the UK are about to get a whole lot shorter. But there's a difference there--on a heavy truck, the piss tank is so large (flow rate is 3 litres pee per 100 litres diesel) it hangs off the frame rail just like your fuel tank does, and you use so much of it they have AdBlue pumps at truck stops.

:rofl:

I'm just glad these are (1) stainless steel and (2) covered by a federally-required really long warranty, because they look like they've got about $5000 worth of platinum in each one. They're fucking huge.

It met an unfortunate demise when it failed to exit when we got in the car. :o

-Hoot

... To avoid getting it inside the car.

Have to have one hand on the wheel and at least one eye on the road.

dude

I quit selling dodges a couple months after those came out so I hadn't yet had a customer who needed to get one refilled.

It's not in the manual?

Looked in the index.

It's not under B for BlueTec.

Nor under A for AdBlue--the European name for the fluid.

Or D for "diesel emissions fluid"--the suggested US name for it.

E for Emissions doesn't show it. We looked under U for Urea, and it's not there either.

In fact, I even looked under P to no avail.

Worth a look. There is a fluids section that may link you to the right pages.

It listed every fluid in the truck except for this one.

:toast:

:hi:

If it's sprayed, it has to be powered by a pump, so I'd think the filler would be under the hood.

I trust there's no owner's manual?

The reason it isn't is because of our all-knowing Environmental Protection Agency. And sadly, what all it knows on the subject of the piss tank is the damn truth.

My googling revealed that the EPA, for many years, didn't want to approve urea injection because they knew the American driver would not keep the tank filled. The compromise the automakers came up with--and it's a good one--is they'd put a large-enough tank to get you to the next oil change, give free oil changes through the warranty period (most of the new car lots in Fayetteville do this anyway--buy a new car, get your oil changed every three thousand miles for the life of the warranty; it's not that expensive to do and people buy add-on services while they're there anyway) and refill the piss tank every time the car comes in.

We traced the lines. There are two. One injects between cat 2 and the particulate separator, the other injects between the particulate separator and cat 3. They trace up to the side of the transmission, where there's a peristaltic pump--one that uses two rollers resting on a piece of tubing to push fluid through the pump. There's no real advantage to driving the piss pump with engine power vice electrically, and it would add complexity to use the engine--longer lines to the cats, a clutch because the pee is only injected once the cats reach operating temperature (there's a sensor on each one), a pulley and a longer belt. Instead of putting $500 in parts on the truck to pump piss, they put a $185 two-gang peristaltic pump on it and call it good. There are three lines plus the electrical cable coming out of the pump: the two lines to the cats, and one that goes up on top of the transmission, takes a turn toward the front and disappears. It's almost like they don't want you to know where the tank is.

...just put a "Vote for Obama" sticker on your truck and the tank will be permanently full of piss, free of charge.

Eighty percent of all the voters in Robeson County, NC, are registered Democrats. And Robeson voters went for Obama, big time.

If I wanted to have the whole truck full of piss, I'd just put a "I (heart) Jesse Helms" bumper sticker on the back of it. The Lumbees hated that fucker.

Tell him that you need to know for some reason that completely precludes his/her ability to do it for you. Otherwise they'll convince you that it has to be done on site with a specially jigglywidgit designed for that purpose ;)

The dealership owner races cars, and our install manager is his crew chief. Since the owner told his staff to "take good care" of us, I think we could get just about any information we wanted.