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1996 K2500 “Krovvy”

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.

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n8in8or said:
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?
 
This weekend I got the 4 patches fully welded and the welds ground flush.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.
 

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Victory is more pleasant when the task involves a bit of struggle.
Glad to see you are making progress, and yes that high resistance coil will cause a tiny shutter that when you first feel it you can’t decide if you felt something or not. It’s kinda gone as soon as it happens. Then a minute later you get another…

Funny, I remember reading that same thing in a manual years ago chasing what I thought was a ghost. Swap-a-roo and the stutter feeling was gone. Hope that’s yours too.
 
Will L. said:
Victory is more pleasant when the task involves a bit of struggle.
Glad to see you are making progress, and yes that high resistance coil will cause a tiny shutter that when you first feel it you can’t decide if you felt something or not. It’s kinda gone as soon as it happens. Then a minute later you get another…

Funny, I remember reading that same thing in a manual years ago chasing what I thought was a ghost. Swap-a-roo and the stutter feeling was gone. Hope that’s yours too.
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A new Delphi coil arrives today. We'll see if that's takes care of it. I hate just throwing parts at it, but I'm sort of at a loss at the moment.
 
Installed the new coil. Interestingly the primary resistance in the new coil read the same as the old one. Gave it a try anyway. It’s finally running pretty smooth.


I’m tempted to try a new module because it isn’t buttery smooth yet, but that’s probably just me being picky and wishing for too much.
 
n8in8or said:
Installed the new coil. Interestingly the primary resistance in the new coil read the same as the old one. Gave it a try anyway. It’s finally running pretty smooth.


I’m tempted to try a new module because it isn’t buttery smooth yet, but that’s probably just me being picky and wishing for too much.
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That sounds real nice.
Also check the pickup coil, inside of distributor cap and plug wires.
Several items not quite what they should be all stacks up to a little less performance.
Seeing a single coil so I’m just guessing it has all those other components.
Especially check the inside of the distributor cap coil wire button and the center top of the rotor for carbon.
Backed up electrical energy will create carbon around those components and cause all kinds of poor performance.
 
MrMarty51 said:
That sounds real nice.
Also check the pickup coil, inside of distributor cap and plug wires.
Several items not quite what they should be all stacks up to a little less performance.
Seeing a single coil so I’m just guessing it has all those other components.
Especially check the inside of the distributor cap coil wire button and the center top of the rotor for carbon.
Backed up electrical energy will create carbon around those components and cause all kinds of poor performance.
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The distributor is a new replacement. The gear was worn and it wasn't much more to just buy a whole new distributor instead of only replacing the gear. Plus and wires are also new, so the only ignition part now that isn't new is the module. Though just because something is new, doesn't mean it isn't bad. I've heard that even new distributor caps can be a problem area on these because the paths criss-cross in the cap internally so the wires aren't all criss-crossed externally. I think it's all fine now, but I'll keep monitoring.
 
Husker6.5 said:
I went through two ignition modules inside the distributor of the 305 wheezer in my old '84 G25 Chevy conversion van before I solved both problems by building and dropping a 300+HP 327 ci engine with a Pertronix 50,000 Volt distributor system into the van.
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Here is from a DELCO HEI that I machined and mated to the 78 MG B after the NLA Lucas ignition failed. I didnt have money for the fancy replacement units so I built My own.
V-8 Cadillac distributor to get the CCW when viewed down on the rotor.
Took guts from a four cylinder GM distributor and mated them to this one.
GM advertised these distributors at 80,000 volts.

 
This past week I got the crossmember welded back in. I forgot to take a picture once it was welded in, but it went to plan.

With that done I pulled the bed outside and cleaned it with KBS Klean and then sprayed KBS Rust Blast all over the underside.

Thursday night I rolled and brushed Eastwood Rust Encapsulator all over the floor and crossmembers.

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I had the day off work yesterday, so I had plenty of time to clean the barn, mask the bed and hang plastic to make a spray booth. I sprayed epoxy primer on the inside and outside of the lower bed panels.

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Today I started out by putting body filler on the panels. After a few rounds of applying and sanding, I got the panels to where I was happy with how straight they were.

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Finally, I first sprayed another coat of epoxy primer on since I had sanded down to bare metal in spots. After that, I sprayed 4 coats of high build primer. I did pretty well with the spray gun this time…..until I didn’t. The first 2 corners I laid the high build down nicely, but when I moved to the other side I got runs, so I must have slowed down how fast I was moving across the panel. Not a huge deal, but now I have more sanding ahead of me tomorrow before I can spray red on it. Hopefully I don’t get any runs in that so I can also spray the clear tomorrow.

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Way behind updating this thread again. I sprayed the red and of course I got runs again. I realized the reducer was for 65-75 degrees and I only had the barn at 60, so that certainly wasn’t helping. After sanding out the runs I sprayed again and that turned out well, so between more repetitions and higher temp I did better.

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Next up was the clear. That went on well and really shined up the paint.

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I wasn’t happy with how the paint lines between old and new paint turned out. I tried to mess with it some more and blend within the lines, but it looked about the same. I should have not tried to be fancy with the stepped masking and instead just painted up to the molding. Oh well - more learning and it looks way better than rust.

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With the painting done, I reinstalled the bed.

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Then I installed the headlights and grill.

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The next night I installed the front turn signal lights and found I had some weird issues - the windshield wipers would turn on when the key was on and headlight switch turned to on, and the lights on the driver side were way dimmer. Neat. Since both the wipers and lights were acting weird, I suspected the multi-function switch. I looked at the switch in the other column and someone had started messing with it, so that wasn’t going to be helpful for diagnostics.

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However, I was able to practice disassembling that column before I did the one in the truck. I then took the switch out of the column in the truck so I could start some diagnostics. I removed the switch and then plugged it back in outside of the column so I could try messing with the switch and see if that changed anything. No change. I was ready to buy a new switch, but then noticed the front harness ground on the driver side of the core support. I tried messing with that and right away all of my problems went away! So I prepped it better and reassembled. All is good now. Too bad I looked into that AFTER taking the column apart, but it wasn’t too bad getting the column back together.

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Next up was getting the rear harness installed as well as the taillights. I cleaned up the lenses with my polisher and rubbing compound and they look pretty good. Now the lights are all working.

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