Hey Folks - I stumbled upon this site earlier this month looking for help - and I have found alot here compared with some other sites. I almost got taken by Steaksauce! What a wonderful site with great folks! Perhaps in the days to come I will have learned enough from my mistakes to be able to share some info on "what NOT to do" with y'all.
I'm in the northwestern corner of NC and I work as a career counselor for people with disabilities.
This area is home to the Blue Ridge Mountains, Doc Watson and a terrific 22 year old festival called Merlefest in honor of Doc's son. www.merlefest.org - If you are looking for a laid back spring retreat that is very family friendly with great Americana music - then come on over in late April.
I've had diesels for almost 10 years now.
The first was a TDI Beetle I bought new in 2001 and about a year later I got a used '95 K2500 Suburban with the 6.5TD - an even trade for my '99 Cherokee no less.
We needed the 3rd seat for the growing family and I figured sooner or later I'd want to pull something.
Now I have a 20' box trailer and a 35' camper to drag around!
The TDi has almost 230K and is still running great at 48MPG - the Sub got a new engine in '07 because I had become convinced (by the dealer and some other 6.5 diesel sites/vendors) that it had suffered a cracked head or block based upon tiny puffs of white smoke at start-up and starting / shutdown problems.
The $10K dealer quote for a new longblock scared me away. They had already hit me for a PMD and then 2 starters. I just could not find anyone local who knew enough about them to diagnose the problems with hard starting, no hot starting and shutting down without warning.
I ended up with a complete engine from SSD and several upgrades. Still cheaper than a Duramax and GM don't really make Diesel subs anymore.
I have a few things I'm working on with the Burb - like fixing the dead OPS (and doing the OPS relay mod), the oil leak at the turbo drain tube, (what do you use to get those bolts out?), and the fuel leak in the valley -gee I hope it is the Filter Mgr o-ring and not the fuel lines on the IP - how do you get a wrench on those??
A few folks have already helped me here with hooking up gauges and I look forward to doing that in the coming weeks too.
I'm in the northwestern corner of NC and I work as a career counselor for people with disabilities.
This area is home to the Blue Ridge Mountains, Doc Watson and a terrific 22 year old festival called Merlefest in honor of Doc's son. www.merlefest.org - If you are looking for a laid back spring retreat that is very family friendly with great Americana music - then come on over in late April.
I've had diesels for almost 10 years now.
The first was a TDI Beetle I bought new in 2001 and about a year later I got a used '95 K2500 Suburban with the 6.5TD - an even trade for my '99 Cherokee no less.
We needed the 3rd seat for the growing family and I figured sooner or later I'd want to pull something.
Now I have a 20' box trailer and a 35' camper to drag around!
The TDi has almost 230K and is still running great at 48MPG - the Sub got a new engine in '07 because I had become convinced (by the dealer and some other 6.5 diesel sites/vendors) that it had suffered a cracked head or block based upon tiny puffs of white smoke at start-up and starting / shutdown problems.
The $10K dealer quote for a new longblock scared me away. They had already hit me for a PMD and then 2 starters. I just could not find anyone local who knew enough about them to diagnose the problems with hard starting, no hot starting and shutting down without warning.
I ended up with a complete engine from SSD and several upgrades. Still cheaper than a Duramax and GM don't really make Diesel subs anymore.
I have a few things I'm working on with the Burb - like fixing the dead OPS (and doing the OPS relay mod), the oil leak at the turbo drain tube, (what do you use to get those bolts out?), and the fuel leak in the valley -gee I hope it is the Filter Mgr o-ring and not the fuel lines on the IP - how do you get a wrench on those??
A few folks have already helped me here with hooking up gauges and I look forward to doing that in the coming weeks too.
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, and I'm one of the evil doers as well as Mr. Jim Jifaire and a host of others here & other sites that have formed the 6.5 posse where we keep a constant vigil for Steak Boy sightings difference here we know what we are talking about and have "day jobs" so we don't need to rob the unsuspecting 6.5 guy like he does. 
