1996 K2500 “Krovvy”

[n8in8or]

This week I finished the exhaust up.

First I bent of some 1/2” rods and used those to tie the pipes to each other so they couldn’t shift out of position from each other. I also used those rods as the foundation for the hangers. I cut the mounts off the factory pipes and welded those to the rods.

Once that was done, I cleaned the pipes and mufflers up to prep them for paint. I intended to use KBS XTC paint for the whole exhaust, but as I read the instructions again, I was afraid the whole exhaust wouldn’t get hot enough to cure the paint as they said it needed to reach 350 degrees to fully cure. I contacted KBS to see if my suspicions were correct and they said they were. Damn. I didn’t want to figure out putting the pipes in an oven somewhere, so instead I coated the head pipes in the XTC and then did the rest of the pipes in Rustoleum Professional. The data sheet says it will stand up to 200 degrees, so I think it will be ok…..and if it doesn’t hold up, then I will recoat the parts where the paint fails in the XTC.

Yesterday I got the exhaust mounted. It turned out pretty well.




Today I started running the lines for the remote oil filter. That is proving to be tricky to get around the exhaust and driveshaft, but I’m close to a solution.

 

[MrMarty51]

Those are some mighty pretty welds and pipes too.

 

[n8in8or]

I appreciate the compliment. I don't love how the welds turned out, but I've never been great at getting welds on thin exhaust pipes to turn out very pretty......though I've also never put a priority on getting them to turn out pretty either. MIG is fast and very forgiving as far as being able to weld over any gaps between the pipes, so I take advantage of both of those features. Maybe someday I'll try to fit things together really well and then use TIG, though my TIG skills aren't as great as I would like either, so that would probably just be a bunch of frustration for little gain.

 

[Will L.]

Take the time for practice and doing on show cars. Daily drivers it isn’t worth the time/effort. It’s like hand stitching interior for perfection versus a nice interior.

Looks great, keep rollin!

 

[dbrannon79]

I bet it would be fun for Nate taking one of his custom builds on the powertour toad trip!

 

[n8in8or]

I bet it would be fun for Nate taking one of his custom builds on the powertour toad trip!

I looked at doing Power Tour in the Escalade this year, but I didn’t get anywhere near to having it up to par for that. The block is still at the machine shop for Pete’s sake….not that I’d have had time to do anything with it anyway. Maybe next year. Or maybe do it with something else. It would be kind of fun to have the only 6.5 on Power Tour. I’m probably further away from having a worthy 6.5 on Power Tour though…..

 

[dbrannon79]

I had wanted to do power tour in my 95 truck at one point after watching a couple of youtube videos of folks taking beaters from the bone yard on the trip. I feel like my old truck would have made it from Texas, but the one thing that stopped me was the thought of needing a tow home at over 1000 miles away! that alone would have cost me a fortune! I had figured out that trip would have been a total of 2300 miles round trip! That is a lot of windshield time LOL

 

[ak diesel driver]

You need to drive to AK a few times. Lol

 

[n8in8or]

This week I got the internals of the doors installed. The driver door was a PIA, but I learned from that and the passenger door went together much better. I’ve got lots of odds and ends done and things are getting closer to done.

Today I got things far enough along that I could start assembling the front clip. I decided to try something different this time and install the inner fenders before the fenders so I could more easily see and reach the final routing of lines and such. So far that’s going well.

 

[SnowDrift]

Does this only work with a gasser?

 

[n8in8or]

Does this only work with a gasser?
View attachment 90047

Unfortunately yes. It doesn’t get pressurized like the diesel ones, which is too bad because it’s so much cheaper than the diesel ones.

 

[dbrannon79]

That is the same unpressurized bottle on my 93 diesel. the only way to go that route is to swap out the radiator with one that has a cap on it. I think champion makes an aftermarket aluminum one with a cap that fits our trucks. my 93 still has the OE one that hopefully holds up for a few more years!

@n8in8or from the looks of your radiator, if that is a 4 core, it looks to be the same as the one in my 93. if you got it using a specific application, it might be a good alternative for the newer diesels and allow the use of the non-pressurized bottle. I would like to at some point switch to this on my 95 and do away with that pressurized tank

 

[n8in8or]

That is the same unpressurized bottle on my 93 diesel. the only way to go that route is to swap out the radiator with one that has a cap on it. I think champion makes an aftermarket aluminum one with a cap that fits our trucks. my 93 still has the OE one that hopefully holds up for a few more years!

@n8in8or from the looks of your radiator, if that is a 4 core, it looks to be the same as the one in my 93. if you got it using a specific application, it might be a good alternative for the newer diesels and allow the use of the non-pressurized bottle. I would like to at some point switch to this on my 95 and do away with that pressurized tank

After I wrote that response, I was thinking it would probably work in a 93 and older diesel application, thanks for adding that.

The radiator is the one that was in my dad’s 98 already. I’ll have to look to see how many cores it has.

 

[n8in8or]

I looked at the radiator today, and it’s a wide 2 core - 4 core equivalent. Looking at the RockAuto catalog, it appears that the core width and height are the same as a 93 diesel radiator, but the core is actually thicker. The other difference is that it has an oil cooler built into the tank, whereas most diesel radiators don’t….but that’s not a huge deal, it just wouldn’t have to be hooked up if it was installed in the diesel. I haven’t compared inlet and outlet diameters though.

 

[n8in8or]

I had the day off work today. I didn’t get as much done as I hoped.

First thing I did was dig the fenders out of the loft area, anticipating that they would be installed today. As I cleaned them off, I noticed a lot more rust than I expected, boo. So I wire wheeled the rusty spots and then hit them with red oxide primer and paint. The driver side fender is pretty good and it probably usable for a long time, but the passenger side is going to need to be replaced eventually. It presents well enough, so it’s going to get bolted on with my touchups and called good enough for now.



I went to assemble the AC and found I didn’t have enough PAG oil on-hand, so I had to run to the store…..another time suck.

I got the AC assembled and drew a vacuum. It held vacuum no problem.

I got the power steering cooler installed also. The donor truck had a tubing complex in the frame horn that acted as a cooler. Unfortunately the fitting was rusted on and it wasn’t savable during disassembly, though probably something I would have wanted to upgrade anyway.



I looked up a proper factory cooler and it was like $110. Seemed pricey. I did some digging and found a similar Derale cooler for just $45-ish.



All I needed to add was a fitting to the gearbox. This is Sunsong part number 3603004.



With those steps done, I installed the driver side inner fender and a couple brackets. Wow, the driver side really gets crowded with that stuff installed. I found that I need to reroute a hydroboost line so the vapor canister will fit, so that will be my next step when I can work on it again a couple days from now. Once that is done, I’ll focus on the vapor lines and then the wiring on that side and in the front of the truck. Hopefully fenders will be going on soon.