1996 K2500 “Krovvy”

[Husker6.5]

Curse you, Murphy, and your stupid Law!

 

[n8in8or]

Tonight I got pretty far on the front patch on the same side of the bed. Learning from fitting the other patch helped me move along a little faster. The patches are ending up larger than I planned because as I’m inspecting the original metal, I’m finding lots of pits on the backside that would probably blow out when I tried to weld, so I am cutting out past that. I’m doing butt joints on these panels instead of lap joints like I’ve done on most repairs, so fitment is taking longer to make sure gaps are minimal.

 

[Husker6.5]

Glad to see things are going better for you on your follow-on patching. Hopefully it will all be done lickity split and you'll be priming and painting in no time flat!

 

[56pan]

Yep. Another project......

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Last fall I bought some 6.5 parts from a guy about 2 hours from me. While there he showed me a truck he had that was basically complete except for an engine and he said he’d sell it to me for $800. I wasn’t looking for a truck, but noted that it was really solid for a Michigan truck, so I stored it in the memory banks. I kept thinking about the truck over the winter.....

Well the dually project keeps growing legs in my mind and I’m woefully behind on it (ok, haven’t started on it) because I’ve been focusing on getting my barn into better shape for working on projects. Over the past 2 months I have sold off 8 pickup bed loads of non-6.5 stuff as part of this process and I’m so happy to have more room and organization! So here I am now - a barn for working on stuff, a decent stash of 6.5 parts and in need of a truck for towing this summer. Sounds like a good fit for this other truck!!

I contacted the owner last week and we made an arrangement for me to come get it. Yesterday I drove up with the Envoy and my car trailer and drug it home. I hope that’s the last time I have to tow something that big with the Envoy, it wasn’t a leisurely drive, that’s for sure.

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So here’s the plan: get it on the road in the next couple months using mostly parts I already have and have a nice solid, doing-nearly-anything rig. That was the problem with the dually - since it’s a 94, with the parts I have in stock, I could only put it together stock or hot, mechanical using all the stuff from the Tahoe. The idea of a stock 6.5 didn’t excite me and I want to do some things before I put the Omega Moose in another truck. I also didn’t want to spend money on an OBD1 tune when it would only be a temporary setup. That’s where the 96 is a better fit - I can put all my cast-off DS4 stuff from the earlier Tahoe build and have a decent running rig.


So today I will be starting the process of pulling the engine and trans from the Tahoe so I can at least use that transmission in this truck - again a good fit....it’s relatively fresh and in good working order so it will work well in this application; the Tahoe and the dually will be getting something built stronger so I might as well start fresh with a core on those rather than take apart a perfectly good transmission. I may also use the Hoe’s short block on this truck since it’s also somewhat fresh and again I’ll want to go bigger and better on the other builds.

I’m excited to get a 6.5 back on the road again!

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Sir, could you elaborate some on the "custom machined pre-cups"? That's a mod. I've never heard of before?

 

[n8in8or]

Sir, could you elaborate some on the "custom machined pre-cups"? That's a mod. I've never heard of before?

Here’s the post from the engine build thread.

Post in thread 'A military rebuilt 6.5'
https://www.thetruckstop.us/forum/threads/a-military-rebuilt-6-5.43832/post-495653

 

[n8in8or]

This weekend I got the 4 patches fully welded and the welds ground flush.



The front crossmember under the bed had some rust holes, so I drilled the spot welds out to remove it. I wire wheeled the floor and sprayed it with weld-through primer. The ends of the crossmember with the mounting nuts were still in good shape so I cut those off, cleaned them up and sprayed with weld-through primer. And finally, I had a couple crossmembers in stock still from the black Tahoe rust repair, so I will use that to fill in the gap between the factory crossmember ends….I also sprayed the flanges of that with weld-through primer.



I also got the engine reassembled this weekend. The fuel rail was leaking at the cap on the end and had a tab broken, so I epoxied those two places since replacements aren’t available.



I installed the reman injectors and reassembled everything. It fired up fine, but it’s idling a little rough. The computer isn’t detecting any misfires, so it isn’t THAT bad, but it’s definitely not right. I did some researching and someone and someone else had a similar experience with a Vortec 454 and it ended up cleaning up after replacing the coil and ignition control module. Those parts are over 25 years old and have 280,000 miles on them….plus haven’t been used in 7 years, so it’s certainly plausible. I found a test for the coil in the service manual using a VOM so I did that. The coil is measuring 1.0 ohms instead of the specified 0.1 ohms, so that may be my culprit.



On the plus side, I did drive it up and down the driveway and through the yard yesterday, so that felt somewhat victorious. Sure wish it was running smooth. The big win is the 4wd is working correctly, which means I got all of the wiring for that correct, which was a concern of mine.