1996 Silverado 6.5 Duramax swap

[Nick 6.5]

Also doing the final mount for the t-case. With the fender well cut to clear the intercooler lines there’s no support for the battery. The fender well just flexes with the weight so I bent and welded a bracket to the bottom of the battery tray and bolted it to the intercooler/radiator bolt. Nice and sturdy now. Haven’t figured out the intake yet. I’ll probably use a tubing cutter and just slice it off so it’s nice and straight

 

[Nick 6.5]

Got the front part of the rear driveshaft bolted up too. Thank got I measured righ. Would have been a $800 mistake! I ended up going with 1-1/2” diameter spline and 1410 u joints all the way back. I considered 1480 just for wow factor but decided it would probably be just a waste. We will see tho. If I break 1480 it is. Still need to build a crossmember to clear the from output yoke. But the factory will work for now. The t-case spline is custom machined from Transfercase express. They do awesome work. And amazing customer service

 

[MrMarty51]

Nice work you are doing there.
Did You get a slight angle on the drive shaft, beyond the center carrier bearing ?

 

[Nick 6.5]

Ya the carrier bearing actually sits higher then yoke on the tcase so the drive shaft actually goes upward a little. The 271 is big! I may take off the top plate on the carrier bearing cross member and build a shorter one or lift the trans a little. But there isn’t much room for clearance especially for torque lift. I’ll take pics of the clearances tomorrow(Sunday). Driveshaft vibration is a bit scary considering I’m not using the aam 11.5 or the balancer yoke. But the balancer yoke will bolt up to the aam 14 bolt hopefully.

 

[Nick 6.5]

I And again for anyone looking to sas these are the rear brackets for the leafs. These are now 2 years old and have gotten a lot of use on the original build thread truck

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

Hate to burst your bubble again, but theres a reason all of us use the stock configuration for the intake, battery and tank. Gordon Marks retained the stock 6.5l arrangement, even runs the 6.5l coolant tank and k47 airbox. He kept having troubles with getting the air purged from the system, and the k47 airbox cannot keep up. He kept collapsing the intake tubed to the point he ended up getting aluminum tubing to try and keep from sucking it flat. That's why I switched to the gmt-800 setup was you NEED that battery space to even remotely feed it enough air to let it run properly. Once you move the intake forward, the only remaining spot big enough to house the battery is where the old coolant tank was, and the coolant reservoir between them. I understand trying to be different, but don't reinvent the wheel to go backwards.

 

[Nick 6.5]

I’m not running the factory air box. I have the aem cold air intake. It’s aluminum tubing with dry filter. I’m really not trying to re invent. Just trying to not do the same old swap everyone already has.

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

The afe filter I run fills up the whole area where the battery would go, and in all honesty, it's borderline big enough(it's just a stage 1 kit). No way would I even consider running anything smaller. Like I said, sometimes things are done a certain way because others have done the learning for us. If you do run the 6.5l coolant tank, you're going to have to piece together the hookups for the hoses as neither 6.5l nor duramax hoses will hookup. That also went back to my desire of running oem parts so there was no looking for custom hoses in bfe.

 

[Nick 6.5]

Ok yes true. But what I did for the tank lines in cut off the 45 closest to the tank on the gmt800 duramax lower hose. And left the 90. And added 17” of straight 1” radiator hose. 1” aluminum tubing to join the 2 together. And for the heater core return I did the same same and joined the 5/8 hoses together. So basically still just getting factory duramax hoses. As for clearance on the intake I’m going to cut off the 45 at the filter to run it straight to the fender in the original-ish location. Get the k&n filter bracket for the 7.4 vortec and bolt that to the fender as well to hold the tube maf and filter. If it doesn’t work then I’ll have to change it up. But at least at that point I saw for my self you know. I understand and appreciate your trying to help me out but I’m knuckle headed at times. Just gotta try things for myself from time to time.

 

[Nick 6.5]

So I haven’t really been doing much to the truck itself lately. I just resigned from my current job and took a week off before I start my new job. So just been ordering stuff and waiting. I did get the heater hoses and coolant lines finished up. And the rest of the driveshaft in. Turns out my driveshaft guy measured wrong and it’s 1-1/2” too long. It’s a 1/4” from bottoming out in the carrier bearing. But I’ll get that fixed later. Before I start driving obviously. And I finally found a decent bed for it. I found a pristine bed in Tracey ca but didn’t want to drive the 6 hours and 300$ in fuel. Plus it had the silver stripe at the bottom. This bed Is all blue and needs very little sheet metal work around the wheel wells. And I need to install my add a leaf kit before the bed goes on. Also figured out how I’m going to weld up my intake. I gotta order the blank weld on bung for the maf still. THe last pic is how I’m thinking about running the intake. There will actually be a 45-ish degree bend in the area of the dipstick. Then another right before the battery. Then the 90 before the fender. I just suck at drawing sorry. But all and all I’m happy and hope it will all work out.

 

[Nick 6.5]

So I have videos but can’t post them here. They are still too big apparently. I even tried the YouTube app but it causes a glitch in my phone and freezes it. Any other ideas? But this weekend I topped off the trans and put coolant in it and actually ran it up to Temp. Also bled the hydroboost system. Still need to figure out where to mount the ram and what length after I get the axle shafts truned down. But I did I did have a bubble In the cooling system i couldn’t get out like the fermanator said. I had enough slack in the hoses to unbolt the coolant tank and lift it above the radiator and turn it sideways to release the bubble that was being trapped by the small 3/8 tube. After that it was fine. I was pretty upset tho when it got up to temp. There is a pretty heavy haze at idle(lb7) and gets even thicker with throttle. I am throwing a P1639 5v reference circuit code and MAP low input P0107 along with MAF code. i can’t remember the code. I’m hoping that’s it. And I got my add a leafs in but I may take them back out. Got the bed on too now obviously. The bed sits too high. I got the weld on maf plate from PPE. Along with new body mounts from summits. Also finished my make shift power steering cooler. I’m going to go bigger once the hydro assist steering is on but that will work for now. So it’s coming along!

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

For bleedi,g the air out of these swaps, it is ESSENTIAL to fill it completely, burp it at the bleeder at the tstat housing, then clamp that 1/2" hose off that goes to the top of the radiator, and remove the hose from the radiator. It is the only way to get that air bubble purged out, and gets most of the air out quickly. Then bring it up to temp, drive it to push the air out to the radiator, let it cool off, and repeat the process of purgi,g the air out of the radiator by clamping the small hose and removing it until you get straight coolant coming out of the top of the radiator. It's a pain, but it's the only effective way I've found tp get the air out of one of these. Your other issue is the 6.5's bottle probably has the coolant level too low so it's not the highest point. The duramax bottle has the coolant level come right up to the top, but iirc the 6.5l bottle did not.

As to the haze, get some GM upper engine/injector cleaner, and do the injector flush on them. They may be gummed up from sitting so long, and a good cleaning with break the hard varnish deposits loose and let the nozzles seal better again.

Edit: just looked at your pics under the hood, and that coolant bottle setup will never work right. It will suck air back into the system as the degas bottle MUST be the highest point. You need to get that bottle moved up as high as possible, otherwise you WILL have problems later on. The bottle's coolant level needs to be as high or higher than that 3/8" hose that comes off the turbo over to the coolant pipe.

 

[MrMarty51]

Truck looks real good.

 

[Nick 6.5]

Well not much development at all. My new job is killing me. 12-14 hour days 6 days a week. I ended up having to send my truck to a shop to get brake lines bent. I just don’t have the time now and was getting way too frustrated trying to do it myself. So I sold out. And I finally got a back window in her. That’s really the only development. I did have a problem bleeding air from the cooling system then come to realize that the passenger side tank of the radiator was cracked from shipping. So I’ll be putting in the new radiator tomorrow. Im hoping to cruise the truck around the parking lot for a minute or two. The plan is to have the truck all finished in 2 weeks. I’ll take pics tomorrow when I’m by the truck. Again sorry for the lack of excitement

 

[MrMarty51]

Thats the way of life, trying to work and also get things done that needs doing.
too bad about the radiator tank being cracked.

 

[Nick 6.5]

Well ****. Installing the new radiator and the fleece performance lines won’t go into the new radiator. So I gotta but a new adapter for the new radiator. When you unscrew the quick connect nothing else holds the cooler in place. Here’s the crack in the old one.

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

The replacement radiators use the jic fittings. Fleece sells them, but you have to buy the washers and such seperately for them. Theres alot of variation in these radiators through the years unfortunately.

 

[Nick 6.5]

Ya gotta give them a call. I’m going to use a -10 male to male to bypass the cooler in the radiator for now. Till the fleece ones are ordered. Unless the local earls has them.

 

[Nick 6.5]

So finally found the fittings for the radiator. Ther were metric 21 with idk what thread pitch I️ Forgot. So frustration has set in so taking a bit of a break. Probably only a week to two weeks. But I️ did score this beauty for only 4K. It’s a theft recover. Stolen bumper and injectors. Think I it was an inside job cause everything was unbolted nothing was cut. Not the injector return lime or injector clips. That or they were planning on taking more but ran out of time. 05 lly 138k 4x4 work truck. I’m in it about 5k now with injectors and other little stuff. But I️ hope it fires

 

[Nick 6.5]