Lookin at a GM 6.5L Diesel maybe possibly..

[maxfax]

The vehicle in question is a '98 K2500 Silverado..   It's sporting about 155K miles, and is clean..   I mean really friggen clean! No dings, dents, chips, rust, stains, leaks, rattles, or funky smells inside..   I would say this would be a $5000 vehicle on a dealer lot rather easily IF it ran right..

This guy was a dealer kinda guy, he had it all done there right down to tires and oil changes..  ABout a year ago it was stalling, hesitating, starting hard..  THey replaced the IP with a reman..  8 months later the prolem returned, the dealer sent the IP out again and under the 1 year warrenty they fixed it....   Now  about another year later it's right back to where it was to begin with..  I've not had alot of experinece with these things it sort of sounds to me like the fuel solenoid driver (aka pump mounted driver) has taken a poo..  I think that may have been the issue the other two times as well from what was described...  I have to wonder if whomever is rebuilding these pumps is actually putting a new PMD on there or not..

Well at this point in time the dealer wants to stick another pump on it..  The owner isn;t sure he wants to sink any more into it..   So out come the sales guys trying their darnest to make him a deal on an '09..   THey offered him $1300 trade in on this thing..   Since he's rather discusted with how the dealer has been handling this he's not sure what he's going to do yet..   Either I may get it to play with and see if I can fix it, (I'll be replacing that PMD right off) or he's gonna buy the '09 and sell this one private.. From what I have gathered he'd sell this thing for $1800..

Not that I have the extra $1800 around but I think I could find it somewhere..   I know the duramax is pretty rock solid, but I just don;t know so much about the 6.5 other than the electrical bugs..  Thoughs, opinions?

[Rabbit on Roids]

you need the PMD relocator. and a few other pieces. heathdiesel.com is 6.5 heaven. they have everything to make them reliable. my grnadpa has a 95 or 6 chev 3500HD truck. 6.5, got it for a song. turbo doesnt work, but the rest of the truck runs pretty good. look into the pump driver tho, i know they make relocation kits for them so they are down by the front bumper or up on the firewall. either way they dont burn up when they are relocated. but they do when they are in the stock location.

http://www.heathdiesel.com/T/Chevy-GM/Chevy-9601/PMD-Isolators/

and then about half way down on this page.

http://www.dieselcare.net/CHEVROLETPRODUCTS.html?gclid=CKv54tmxkp4CFRhfagodNkm5oQ

[maxfax]

Thanks for the info ROR..    I was reading about those in brief..   I thought one woudl be worth it if for no other reason than not having to remove the intake to change the darned thing..  But it does make alot of sense to me to relocate the thing..   Another "smart engineer" was at work when they placed the thing...
 
 I was looking though his recipts, and by some stroke of luck the pump rebuilder made note of which resistor was used on this one..  I won;t even have to deal with the one on there now, other than unplugging it... 

Took a crawl under the thing this morn..   Damn is it clean under there..   Slight oil leak from the filter elbow but otherwise really nice..    I kinda hope he opts to dump this thing...

[Rabbit on Roids]

that would be sweet.

i guess you can get right about 300 horses out of these and still have them be a fairly reliable rig. these 6.2 and 6.5 engines have a very unique sound all their own. they almost sound like a big block V8, but they just dont turn the R's. speaking of 6.2's, i watched an idiot burn one down in the mud last week. had sparks shooting out the tail pipes.. just bouncing it off the governor. the tires would grab and it would get real loud, then they would slip again and it would just sit there bouncin off the governor again. pretty sure he was getting ready to have a complete meltdown on a pre-cup or a piston.. then right after the sparks, he shuts it off. bad idea... i told him to keep it idling to cool it down. he went to fire it back up and it slowly groaned and turned over. the cooling system was pressurized, but 3-4 mins later it was done hissing. im pretty sure the HG's were toast also.

[maxfax]

Hmm sparks outta the exhaust..  Yeah no good had to come of that..  Did he WANT to walk home??

I gotta say it does have a nice sound to it..  It would be better with the muffler removed...  Different from the Ford v8 diesels though..

It's been ages since I drove a GM built diesel, but I remeber the 6.2 being painfully gutless..  I was rather young but I rmeber alot of the 6.2 powered trucks coming into the shop for head gaskets, or to simply be replaced..  Dad swapped alot of dead 6.2's for gassers back in the day..   I wasn;t sure how the 6.5's faired...

At this point the truck is sitting in my driveway...  We went down to the dealer to get it this afternoon...   All my reading kinda pointed to the 6.5 being a bit of a slug, but I didn;t think it felt too bad for stock form..   At least till it started acting up..  It's text book PMD failure...   I haven;t gotten the word yet if he's selling or fixing.. 

[burn_your_money]

The resistor number doesn't make much difference. Just as long as you have one in there it'll be fine.

From what I've seen of these 6.5 pumps I would never own one, but then again no one sends us a good working pump to rebuild

[maxfax]

I'm guessing you get alot of pumps with major issues??  I have read about alot of people replacing pumps, but I wasn;t sure if it was due to pump failure, or in this truck's case a DOA PMD...   This brings me to another question I've been toying with, can the 6.2 pump be molested to work on one of these??  At least aside from the obvious that I'd need some throttle linkage and some means to control the trans....

[Rabbit on Roids]

bolt a mechanical 6.5 pump on there. anything before 95 had a mech pump.

[catlin_cava]

My bro had a 96 with the 6.5L and will never own another one again.

[maxfax]

Catlin, why is that??   Was it fuel system issues, or major engine related problems???

[OM617]

The 6.5 eats pumps every 100k miles. My grandfather used to tow a gooseneck for an Oklahoma newspaper printer and it would eat pumps like clockwork. Other than the pump, poor towing power and being a GM product, it was a decent truck.

[Rabbit on Roids]

adding some sort of lubricity enhancer would most definitely make the pumps last longer. hell, the diesel we are running now is probably almost as bad as the liquid glass they run through the engines of "cash for clunkers" engines. im just glad that no VW diesels had to die from that program. the vehicle had to get under 20 mpg or something to qualify. any VW diesel getting 20 MPG either has almost 500 horsepower, or is so worn out that it needs to be crushed. LOLZ

[maxfax]

Pump replacement is what I've been hearing the most about..  I guess it's more than just electronic failures in the pump..
And yes it is a GM product, GM built diesel powered no less..

I haven;t gotten a final word but it sounds as though negotiations on a new one aren't going so well.. He gave me the go ahead on the PMD and relocation kit regardless of what he decides...  I guess after that gets here I can take it on a good run and see how I feel about it..  If I like it I'm sure he;ll want to keep it..

[Wayland]

FWIW, I was seriously considering buying a GM van w/ a 6.5. At the last minute I changed my mind and bought a first gen. Dodge CTD. Since then I've passed at least a few dead GM diesels sitting on the side of the highway. No trouble at all with the Cummins though.

[catlin_cava]

Catlin, why is that??   Was it fuel system issues, or major engine related problems???

Fuel System all the time...