1. Looked like the turbo started feeding oil to the engine. The seals on the turbo can wear out and start directing the oil into the cylinders and presto, skeeter fogger. There may be other causes, but that’s the only one that I know of. I never had it happen to me when I was on the road, but I had heard of it happening.

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2. If there’s too much gasoline vapor in the air, that can feed a runaway too. That’s why diesels are recommended to shut down when fueling at a gas station.

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   1. I saw that happen at a refinery.

3. Super high mileage motors with worn rings can suck oil out of the pan. I saw an old Cat loader do that, the old mechanic calmly walked over to it and slapped a piece of plywood over the air intake shutting it down. Everyone else was haulin ass outta the building. Only way to shut them down is cut off air or fuel,but when they get like that one, RUN.

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   1. Yeah, kinda hard to mitigate the issue when it’s already gotten to that (and you can’t easily block the intake anyhow).

4. What many folks don’t understand is that diesels are not throttled by a butterfly valve (as in a carburetor or throttle body), they’re throttled by the amount of fuel injected. If you cannot control the fuel introduced, you cannot control the throttling. This is one reason you shouldn’t use regular gas-engine starting fluid on a diesel — it could run away (additionally, the compression will cause random uncontrolled compression-ignition sequences).

5. I saw one do that in person. It’s an impressive smoke generator.

6. I recall hearing a horror story of a piece of heavy equipment in an underground mine springing a pinhole leak in a hydraulic hose…that just HAPPENED to be aimed right at the air intake. The engine started dieseling the hydraulic fluid.

   caused a feedback loop; higher RPM-> higher PSI-> larger leak-> more ‘fuel’-> higher RPM ad nauseum.

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