Ford 2600 Puffing at the wrong end

Come to think of it I know a guy who did have a diesel going backwards. He was climbing an icy hill and at some point the drive wheels got enough traction to grab and the force stopped the engine and got it going backwards. He said it was blowing oil out the breather by the quarts. he quickly shut off the fuel.

It would have been interesting to put it in gear to see which way it went! Is this a diesel and did you use starting fluid to start it?

I have heard of older diesels running backwards. I've never seen it but my dad used to warn me about it (I was under the impression that this was more likely to happen when shutting the tractor off by cutting the fuel supply then resuming fuel flow before the engine came to a dead stop). If in fact it was running backwards, I can't imagine it would be too good for it with the oil pump running backwards.