1990 RAM 3500 - Skinny pedal question

I have a 1990 dodge ram it has a 12valve cummins my question is why is when i stick the skinny pedal on the left to the floor all of this black smoke comes out my exhaust

Hmm, what is the “skinny pedal” for? I have not seen a vehicle with more than clutch, brake, and accelerator pedals.
Note: I am aware older vehicles had various buttons on the floor, high beam switch, radio scan, starter buttons. No “skinny pedals”, though my car has a foot rest to the left of the clutch pedal.

As far as the black smoke, you have an engine problem. Have it diagnosed by a Diesel engine mechanic.

When this happens, are you yelling “YeeHaw take that Tesla” ?

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@CooperParks What is a ’ Skinny Pedal ’ asking for a friend.

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the emergency brake. push it down, try to go. and black smoke. lol

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Yeah…skinny pedal to the left of what? I think you’ve confused the skinny pedal with the “oh shite” pedal. Or I’ve got my left and right confused, which has happened before at more inopportune times. But…diesel + running rich + possibly (hopefully if it’s running rich) tuned + cat delete = soot/black smoke. Are you asking a legit question or just rubbing it in that you’ve got a Cummins? “Is that a Hemi?” Well, er, no… But it will pull a Hemi across North America :grin:

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on a right hand drive vehicle, is the accelerator pedal still closest to the middle of the vehicle? or still on the right side?

either way, OP probably meant accelerator pedal as it is the 'skinny" pedal. Having soot out of a 30 year old diesel under full acceleration is pretty normal. Not healthy, but normal.

I am thinking maybe another drive by POSTER that we will never hear from again.

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Good question I always wondered about that also.

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Pretty sure the pedals are in the same locations, RHD or LHD. They were in the car I rented in Ireland.

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The pedals on a RHD car are in the same orientation as if they would be for LHD, a friend with a RHD Nissan Pao commented that every person they let drive the car reached for the gearshift and found the window winder instead, otherwise it’s the same as LHD, gas on the right, brake in the middle, clutch on the left.

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Just a wild guess, and I know nearly nothing about diesels…

Could this truck have been “modified” somehow, at some point, with a pedal to change some engine function to blow out black soot? I’m thinking of the (sigh) “rolling coal” phenomenon…

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I wonder about that too. Is this the activator for the rolling coal option?

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Another question I know the newer diesels use DEF and I think when it first started it was added directly into the fuel tank at fill up then if I remember right they started using separate tanks for the DEF how does the DEF get added to the fuel is it automaticly done when the engine is running or there some control in the cab for the driver to do when it is needed?

It doesn’t, it’s injected into the exhaust and the heat causes a chemical reaction

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Thank you for that information the diesels that I owned were all before the DEF.

As is the one in the OP’s truck.

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The problem w/the RH driver position car that confused me the most confusion was that the gear shift positions (the direction you had to move the lever to get it to go from 1 to 2 to 3 … ), that was the same as for LH cars, but the gear shift lever was on the left. On acceleration I often found myself shifting down instead of up the gears. The folks driving behind me I – by their honking — found this even more frustrating … lol …

One of several reasons we rented an Automatic when we were in the UK and Ireland 8yrs ago.

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When I was in Japan for work, they only offered us automatics, usually a Vitz. The max speed limit on that small island was 50 KPH anyway,