• Welcome to The Truck Stop! We see you haven't REGISTERED yet.

    Your truck knowledge is missing!
    • Registration is FREE , all we need is your birthday and email. (We don't share ANY data with ANYONE)
    • We have tons of knowledge here for your diesel truck!
    • Post your own topics and reply to existing threads to help others out!
    • NO ADS! The site is fully functional and ad free!
    CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

    Problems registering? Click here to contact us!

    Already registered, but need a PASSWORD RESET? CLICK HERE TO RESET YOUR PASSWORD!

What did you do with your GMT400 today...or yesterday....

Got the Rookie pass done on Sunday. Wow, what a great experience. True, I’ve gone faster on the Autobahn but, this was so much better.
Before:
IMG_0397.jpeg
Going over procedures for starting, launching, shift points, steering, normal shut down, emergency bail out, normal extraction, start line procedures…. Lots of details. Chris Mursick is one of lead safety inspectors and knowing the regulations we have to day were written in the blood of those who’ve died in the past…yeah, pay attention. Close attention.

Aussie pall Jason buckled in and ready to make his record attempt.
2512841666047719829.jpeg

Me, after the run. Now one can be light hearted.
IMG_0398.jpeg

Maggie (spousal unit) came out for the day to be a part of a long held dream.
Maggie, Jason, Chris Mursick, Mr. “Rookie No Mo” Pavel Tolz
IMG_0400.jpeg

Starter and 200 MPH Club member Ken Carlson gave me the ‘No Mo’ title. The starter has to sign your time slip before you can get your ‘Rookie” label removed and receive an SCTA Competition License.
IMG_0402.jpeg

Our good luck Sasquatch needed some repairs.
IMG_1599.jpeg
When we get up to speed we can hear him scream because the zip tie get tighter around his, er, Sasquatchies.

Our neighbors in the pits are running a nitro-methane Chevy Monza. Backfired on propane during start up and ate a starter. Almost looks like it could have been a 6.5 unit except for the extra venting.
IMG_1601.jpeg


Recall what I said about the rules being written in blood? Less than 30 minutes after my joyful time celebrating the rookie pass, long time racer Chris Raschke was killed when something went wrong on the Speed Demon car he was driving at 283 mph. He was making a test pass on the team’s attempt to surpass 500mph in a wheel driven piston engine vehicle.o
Suddenly the car was airborne, almost launched sailed a long way and then impacted. Hope sprang eternal but, there weren’t too many who thought he survived the impact.
IMG_0404.jpeg
 
Paveltolz said:
Got the Rookie pass done on Sunday. Wow, what a great experience. True, I’ve gone faster on the Autobahn but, this was so much better.
Before:
View attachment 95267
Going over procedures for starting, launching, shift points, steering, normal shut down, emergency bail out, normal extraction, start line procedures…. Lots of details. Chris Mursick is one of lead safety inspectors and knowing the regulations we have to day were written in the blood of those who’ve died in the past…yeah, pay attention. Close attention.

Aussie pall Jason buckled in and ready to make his record attempt.
View attachment 95266

Me, after the run. Now one can be light hearted.
View attachment 95269

Maggie (spousal unit) came out for the day to be a part of a long held dream.
Maggie, Jason, Chris Mursick, Mr. “Rookie No Mo” Pavel Tolz
View attachment 95268

Starter and 200 MPH Club member Ken Carlson gave me the ‘No Mo’ title. The starter has to sign your time slip before you can get your ‘Rookie” label removed and receive an SCTA Competition License.
View attachment 95273

Our good luck Sasquatch needed some repairs.
View attachment 95270
When we get up to speed we can hear him scream because the zip tie get tighter around his, er, Sasquatchies.

Our neighbors in the pits are running a nitro-methane Chevy Monza. Backfired on propane during start up and ate a starter. Almost looks like it could have been a 6.5 unit except for the extra venting.
View attachment 95271


Recall what I said about the rules being written in blood? Less than 30 minutes after my joyful time celebrating the rookie pass, long time racer Chris Raschke was killed when something went wrong on the Speed Demon car he was driving at 283 mph. He was making a test pass on the team’s attempt to surpass 500mph in a wheel driven piston engine vehicle.o
Suddenly the car was airborne, almost launched sailed a long way and then impacted. Hope sprang eternal but, there weren’t too many who thought he survived the impact.
View attachment 95276
Click to expand...

So sad about Chris loosing his life, I read about that online and figured that you were there.
 
Got the $50 driver’s seat from salvage cleaned up. Had my wife pick up a bottle of Folex spot carpet/upholstery cleaner from HD. She went to town on the seat and just raved about how well the Folex stuff worked. I followed that up with the upholstery attachment on my Rug Doctor carpet machine and the seat is looking pretty good now. All that is left is to clean up the years of gack on the seat tracks and it will be ready to install.

Before:
IMG_9632.jpeg

IMG_9633.jpeg

During (cleaning):
IMG_9630.jpeg

After:

IMG_9631.jpeg
 
I had ordered the liquid line that goes between the condenser and evap for my 95 but to my surprise I goofed and ordered one that was made for dual front and rear units. it was only $16, but it's not gonna work unless I can figure out how to plug off the extra line port. it also has provisions to hold the orifice tube in the middle section of the line unlike mine where it goes in the condenser. So not gonna get to replace the condenser this weekend!

I did however attempt to replace the orifice tube. I had also ordered a yellow GM orifice tube which is a 0.062 where the old one was a black 0.072 orifice. going off some recommendations I read on the GMT400 forum, they are saying the slightly smaller orifice helps.

got the system evacuated using my homemade evac system (old fridge compressor, gauges, and an old tank) I was able to save and re-use the refrigerant. swapped out the orifice tube and recharged. I did notice slightly lower pressures on the low side and a smigin higher on the high which in turn got the vent temps at 55 degrees from 60 before. that was a plus, but for what ever reason my high side pressures are rather odd.

when you first turn on the ac the high side will spike way up to a little over 350psi and then slowly settle back down (has always done this), but once the system is cooling the highest I see on the high is 225-230 with the engine RPM bumped up using the high idle switch. doesn't even climb any using my foot to hold it at 2000rpm. I am still suspecting the condenser is the issue, mainly the repair kit that was used by the PO. when I went to swap out the orifice tube, I noticed that the old one slipped right out easily and the new one almost dropped into place. Only had to push it ever so lightly for it to go in where it was supposed to. I have a suspicion that the refrigerant is able to bypass the o-ring on the orifice tube not allowing it to build a decent pressure differential between the low and high sides. I'm no expert on air conditioning systems but I do know you have to have a good pressure differential for the liquid refrigerant to turn into a gas creating the "cold". with the outside temps today at 98 degrees, I should have seen near 280 +/- psi on the high. my suspicion on this also lines up with why I seen to have to add more refrigerant that it should be taking for the system to cool! if the orifice was sealing in the tube around the o-ring and having "too much" my pressures would be so high I would be blowing something up! This truck shouldn't need 4 cans or 45ish ounces to cool!

I looked online to see who I can get the correct liquid line from, but no one has it local and the jungle site can't get me one for about a week! I might end up taking this one to the local Napa and see if I can find the fitting that goes in that port, then weld it shut on the end to make a plug! we shall see! the fitting is a metric M20x1.5 thread with a o-ring.
 
Thursday was the final day on the flats. We packed up the equipment and car Wednesday afternoon and went back out to watch friends back up their record qualifying runs from the day before. Ruiz: once you beat the current class record or ‘qualify’, you have to make another run (back up) and qualify again the next morning. If you succeed on both runs, the speeds are averaged and that establishes the new record.

Our friends with modified NitroMethane burning, starter busting, mid-engine Monza backed up their run at over 191mph. IMG_1612.jpeg
IMG_1613.jpeg
The engine’s located just under the windshield, driver sits in the back seat behind the driver seat’s normal spot and exhaust goes out the passenger door. Oh, and it is a four banger
IMG_1614.jpeg

Danny Thompson pushed the Furgeson stream liner to 411 and qualified to make a back up run Friday morning. Haven’t heard if they succeeded or not. Need to look up Gearhead Hobby’s YouTube channel and see. I noticed the Gearhead guys edited their archived live feed to remove Sunday’s wreck that killed Chris Raschke. That was good of them.

Some happy snaps:
Leaving Camp and then parked on the start line to watch the back up runs. Lots of people are intrigued by the Diesel powered K1500. Truck really needs a paint job as the initial 220 scuffing is more like Rod Stewarts ‘Maggie-May’ “The morning sun… really shows your age.”
IMG_1604.jpeg

IMG_1610.jpeg

Two ‘Lakesters’ (wheels outside the body) were parked at the start line assembly area overnight (common) so they can get on the course right after the back up runs are completed.IMG_1606.jpeg
IMG_1607.jpeg

So, another Speed Week complete. The Ghia made 11 passes, 9 of them full pulls (we cut two short) and it survives to run again at El Mirage or Bonneville.
Screenshot_20250808_184524_Facebook.jpeg

The trailer I rented from the Tooele Army Depot Outdoor Rec. facility worked great but, the new ‘AtlanTec’ 4K generator ran about 13 hours before kicking the bucket. I found two Honda EU2000i generators with a Parallel attachment on KSL Classified and picked them up last night. The newer Honda 2200i units that replaced these are: 11-14 hundred each, reportedly start harder, aren’t as reliable and heavier. These look brand new and were even better in person. Started on the first pull and it was a very easy pull too. Yeah, grabbed them.

IMG_1617.jpeg

With a very strong head wind and a long, 2% ish climb going out, the truck got 13.6mpg w/ 3:73 gearing and stock tires. Very hot afternoon so I had to ditch the A/C quite a few times to keep under 210. Never got above 205 and EGT’s at the worse touched 1100*. On the way home, the climb is shorter, the air temps cooler, the winds calm and the A/C never got shut down so I got 15.2mpg. I can live with that.

IMG_1605.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Paveltolz said:
Thursday was the final day on the flats. We packed up the equipment and car Wednesday afternoon and went back out to watch friends back up their record qualifying runs from the day before. Ruiz: once you beat the current class record or ‘qualify’, you have to make another run (back up) and qualify again the next morning. If you succeed on both runs, the speeds are averaged and that establishes the new record.

Our friends with modified NitroMethane burning, starter busting, mid-engine Monza backed up their run at over 191mph. View attachment 95298
View attachment 95303
The engine’s located just under the windshield, driver sits in the back seat behind the driver seat’s normal spot and exhaust goes out the passenger door. Oh, and it is a four banger
View attachment 95304

Danny Thompson pushed the Furgeson stream liner to 411 and qualified to make a back up run Friday morning. Haven’t heard if they succeeded or not. Need to look up Gearhead Hobby’s YouTube channel and see. I noticed the Gearhead guys edited their archived live feed to remove Sunday’s wreck that killed Chris Raschke. That was good of them.

Some happy snaps:
Leaving Camp and then parked on the start line to watch the back up runs. Lots of people are intrigued by the Diesel powered K1500. Truck really needs a paint job as the initial 220 scuffing is more like Rod Stewarts ‘Maggie-May’ “The morning sun… really shows your age.”
View attachment 95295

View attachment 95296

Two ‘Lakesters’ (wheels outside the body) were parked at the start line assembly area overnight (common) so they can get on the course right after the back up runs are completed.View attachment 95299
View attachment 95300

So, another Speed Week complete. The Ghia made 11 passes, 9 of them full pulls (we cut two short) and it survives to run again at El Mirage or Bonneville.
View attachment 95302

The trailer I rented from the Tooele Army Depot Outdoor Rec. facility worked great but, the new ‘AtlanTec’ 4K generator ran about 13 hours before kicking the bucket. I found two Honda EU2000i generators with a Parallel attachment on KSL Classified and picked them up last night. The newer Honda 2200i units that replaced these are: 11-14 hundred each, reportedly start harder, aren’t as reliable and heavier. These look brand new and were even better in person. Started on the first pull and it was a very easy pull too. Yeah, grabbed them.

View attachment 95301

With a very strong head wind and a long, 2% ish climb going out, the truck got 13.6mpg w/ 3:73 gearing and stock tires. Very hot afternoon so I had to ditch the A/C quite a few times to keep under 210. Never got above 205 and EGT’s at the worse touched 1100*. On the way home, the climb is shorter, the air temps cooler, the winds calm and the A/C never got shut down so I got 15.2mpg. I can live with that.

View attachment 95305
Click to expand...
15.2 mpg while towing is very good.
 
I spent most of the day tinkering with the 93 truck chasing electrical issues. the last couple if weeks driving it before getting the 95 going the battery meter in the cab had been acting strange. voltage would be up in the 13's until the gear vendor overdrive kicked in, then the voltage would drop to 12.5 and sometimes lower as if it was pulling too much or my alternator wasn't charging too well.

Well I figured I would open up the dash and get at the controller for the OD unit, also check the solenoid too. kept messing around and couldn't find anything. I finally found that the connections to the batteries were loose! tightened them up, but still with it running and probing each battery with my meter I would still get between a volt to 1.5 volts different between the two. also probed the alternator stud and it was way higher than at ether battery!!

since I am running top to side post adapters on both batteries, I ended up pulling them off and realized the threads that hold the cables were not that deep. I was using some stainless 3/8 bolts with a backup nut to keep them secure since all of the cables have copper lugs like you find on a marine cable. rather than going out and buying some better adapters, I drilled out the adapters I had and threaded the holes deeper to eliminate the backup nut and allow the bolt to grab more of the adapter. cleaned up each cable lug even though they all looked clean. Now using my meter, voltage was the same across each battery. started up the engine and still had much higher voltage at the alternator stud than at the batteries.

Cleaned up the lug on the alternator cable and followed it up to the terminal block on the firewall. cleaned up the block and still no dice! I had this issue with the 95 as well and it turned out to be the puny fusible link wire was limiting current flow to the batteries, so I did what your not supposed to do.... added a second 8 awg wire to the back of the alternator and ran it to the drivers side battery. Boom that fixed the voltage issue. the gauge in the cab now has the same voltage as each battery and matches what's at the alternator.

I will eventually fix it right later by cutting out the fusible link and installing a re-settable breaker like is used for stereo amps. I'm willing to bet that this is also why it has been getting harder to start forcing me to use the GP override switch. the GP's and the cab wasn't getting full power if anything was pulling a load! plus my batteries would go weak with one not charging up like it should.
 
dbrannon79 said:
I spent most of the day tinkering with the 93 truck chasing electrical issues. the last couple if weeks driving it before getting the 95 going the battery meter in the cab had been acting strange. voltage would be up in the 13's until the gear vendor overdrive kicked in, then the voltage would drop to 12.5 and sometimes lower as if it was pulling too much or my alternator wasn't charging too well.

Well I figured I would open up the dash and get at the controller for the OD unit, also check the solenoid too. kept messing around and couldn't find anything. I finally found that the connections to the batteries were loose! tightened them up, but still with it running and probing each battery with my meter I would still get between a volt to 1.5 volts different between the two. also probed the alternator stud and it was way higher than at ether battery!!

since I am running top to side post adapters on both batteries, I ended up pulling them off and realized the threads that hold the cables were not that deep. I was using some stainless 3/8 bolts with a backup nut to keep them secure since all of the cables have copper lugs like you find on a marine cable. rather than going out and buying some better adapters, I drilled out the adapters I had and threaded the holes deeper to eliminate the backup nut and allow the bolt to grab more of the adapter. cleaned up each cable lug even though they all looked clean. Now using my meter, voltage was the same across each battery. started up the engine and still had much higher voltage at the alternator stud than at the batteries.

Cleaned up the lug on the alternator cable and followed it up to the terminal block on the firewall. cleaned up the block and still no dice! I had this issue with the 95 as well and it turned out to be the puny fusible link wire was limiting current flow to the batteries, so I did what your not supposed to do.... added a second 8 awg wire to the back of the alternator and ran it to the drivers side battery. Boom that fixed the voltage issue. the gauge in the cab now has the same voltage as each battery and matches what's at the alternator.

I will eventually fix it right later by cutting out the fusible link and installing a re-settable breaker like is used for stereo amps. I'm willing to bet that this is also why it has been getting harder to start forcing me to use the GP override switch. the GP's and the cab wasn't getting full power if anything was pulling a load! plus my batteries would go weak with one not charging up like it should.
Click to expand...
If you haven't yet, I would augment or upside the cable going to the load center. It's marginally sized - like every other wire in a vehicle. They save a penny and weight, anywhere they can. .,

On the alternator, I would get junk yard cables or sometimes order new alternator cables, so I had one running to each battery.
 
Well not on the truck, but the wife's trailblazer had catastrophe strike this evening! she was out running errands and calls me... says the temp gauge was at 260 and the battery light was on!!!! I about had a heart attack, told her to shut it down NOW!!! her response was but I'm on my way... I stopped her and said in a loud voice IDK shut it down NOW!! climbed into the truck and went to where she was at and looked it over. the belt had melted off and the water pump was locked. checked the coolant, topped it off and said take my truck and try to keep up.

she was only about a mile and a half from my daughters house so I turned the key, temp was sitting on 210. cranked it up and hauled arse, popped it in neutral and shut the engine off letting it coast from about 60 down the road, had to cross a main highway intersection, luckily there wasn't any traffic so I fired it back up and darted across, again letting it coast with the engine off for a good ways. got it into my daughters yard and parked it. gauge was at 230 by then and I could hear it boiling. left it there for the night.

got another water pump and belt ordered to arrive on Tuesday. I'm hoping nothing else took any damage like head gaskets or worse! we shall see after I get the new pump installed later in the week.
 
Yesterday I jacked off the morning on stereo head unit wiring. Complete fail other than achieving a cleaner re-routing of the mic and ground wires to behind the dash. Also cleaned up the HVAC wiring harness as it was stuffed poorly into the dash which was causing intermittent outages of the blower motor.

In order to bag some success, I did a 3K mile oil change at 249.9K miles on the truck and 8.4K miles on the engine. Then I took my dog for an evening hike.
 
New fuel pressure sending units and snubbers arrived todays mail.
IMG_3793.jpeg
Had to add an elbow to the lift pump elbow that was already there.
Now the SU terminals points forwards instead of at the frame rail.
A bastard getting that elbow tight enough so it will seal proper but it can be done.
And now, key in run position, engine does not need to run.
IMG_3794.jpeg
No more fluctuating gauge or pegging to 30 PSI and bouncing around.
Just below 15 PSI.
If that is set too high then please advise.
That is right off the lift pump.
Tomorrows poorject will be to remove the upper intake, remove the fuel pressure sending unit, install the snubber and the new SU, put it all back together then see what it does with the positional toggle switch in the front SU position. 😹
 
dbrannon79 said:
is it just me or am I seeing your boost gauge sitting at about 8psi with your key just on?
Click to expand...
I’m not sure whats going on with that gauge.
It was working last Sunday when I made the 62 mile round trip to church and home but Monday morning when I went to work it was down on 5PSI exhaust pressure But when I went home at dinner time I noticed it is stuck on 15 PSI exhaust pressure.
I’ll have the hood open this evening after work to change out the FP sending unit and install the snubber into the fitting at the IP and then I’ll see if the tube got kinked or plugged.
It does make a sharp bend under the pillar pod so maybe it is kinked under there.
I might have to drill out through the side of that pod to give them tubes a smoother transition to that dash pod.
Also, with the engine running and the GP lamp not illuminated, voltage near to the 14V range, the FP goes to 16 PSI.
According to the FP gauge when it would read correct, it was about 1 PSI lower at the IP so I think the pressure at the IP is still okay.
After I get the IP SU and snubber installed I believe I’ll drop the FP at the IP down to about ten or twelve PSI.
 
Got the snubber installed at the IP.
I thought I had a pic of fron and back SUs but apparently I didnt get the switch flipped from back to front during photo op.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll gettum in here.
Right now I’m just too tired to go out and get them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top