Veg_Out
Walking J Designs
Great work, nice RattleStop install! That major of a dashboard repair is a huge project, well done.
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My Suburban Renewal Project
- Thread starter bobbiemartin
- Start date
bobbiemartin
Author of The DB2 Conversion Guide
I have installed a new fan motor, but I will run another ground wire just to be sure.
I have the latest water pump and upgraded fan & clutch
bobbiemartin
Author of The DB2 Conversion Guide
OK, I know its been a while. I was out of town for 3 straight weekends and with Christmas and all I haven't had much time to work on the Suburban, but now I'm back to work. The engine and transmission are in. No real problems on that, it went in fairly easily.
Here is the engine installed. I made a few changes while the engine was out. In addition to changing most of the water hoses, I changed back to a single thermostat and went with the newest spin on water pump. I also eliminated the snap in heater fitting in the crossover. The single thermostat also allowed going back to the factory standard throttle & cruise control cable brackets for the DB2. I remote mounted the OPS sending units and ran a braided hose from the block. The left side runs a Kennedy lift pump controller, the right is the factory OPS. I still need to finish the extended wires. I'm thinking about a future mod that will use both OPS units.
Here is the new water pump (actually its a Peninsular take off unit) and single thermostat crossover and new AC compressor. Vibration damper, pulley and tensioner were replaced a while back so they got reused. Vacuum pump has long been removed.
I moved the cruise control unit to the proper location on the firewall, you can see the cable here. I have all new battery cables that will use the top post, no more side terminals for me! I have a low fuel pressure sending unit mounted on a new fuel manager. I had a problem with the old one leaking so that is a new Peninsular take off.
Kind of hard to see, but the plastic cover on the glow plug wires had deteriorated, so I installed some Mr. Gasket Inferno Shield wire sleeves over the wires to protect them from the exhaust heat. I also sleeved the wire to the starter solenoid. Wires and hose still need tidying up.
It got dark before I could take any more pictures, but most of the work is done. If all goes well, it should be running next weekend. I have R&R'ed lots of engines, but this is my first 6.5 and has been more work than I thought it would be. I have changed a lot of stuff and made some mods as well, so that is part of it. But with the front & rear heat & air and all the other stuff, there are a lot of components to install and hook up. But its getting there.
Here is the engine installed. I made a few changes while the engine was out. In addition to changing most of the water hoses, I changed back to a single thermostat and went with the newest spin on water pump. I also eliminated the snap in heater fitting in the crossover. The single thermostat also allowed going back to the factory standard throttle & cruise control cable brackets for the DB2. I remote mounted the OPS sending units and ran a braided hose from the block. The left side runs a Kennedy lift pump controller, the right is the factory OPS. I still need to finish the extended wires. I'm thinking about a future mod that will use both OPS units.
Here is the new water pump (actually its a Peninsular take off unit) and single thermostat crossover and new AC compressor. Vibration damper, pulley and tensioner were replaced a while back so they got reused. Vacuum pump has long been removed.
I moved the cruise control unit to the proper location on the firewall, you can see the cable here. I have all new battery cables that will use the top post, no more side terminals for me! I have a low fuel pressure sending unit mounted on a new fuel manager. I had a problem with the old one leaking so that is a new Peninsular take off.
Kind of hard to see, but the plastic cover on the glow plug wires had deteriorated, so I installed some Mr. Gasket Inferno Shield wire sleeves over the wires to protect them from the exhaust heat. I also sleeved the wire to the starter solenoid. Wires and hose still need tidying up.
It got dark before I could take any more pictures, but most of the work is done. If all goes well, it should be running next weekend. I have R&R'ed lots of engines, but this is my first 6.5 and has been more work than I thought it would be. I have changed a lot of stuff and made some mods as well, so that is part of it. But with the front & rear heat & air and all the other stuff, there are a lot of components to install and hook up. But its getting there.
guybb3
Member
Bobbie I have a quick question for you. When you pulled the motor, did you notice if the vacuum pump mounting holes were blind (don't go all the way through into crankcase)?
bobbiemartin
Author of The DB2 Conversion Guide
No I really didn't look. I removed the vacuum pump years ago. I did not plug any holes and it didn't leak oil, so I guessing they do not go into the crankcase.
Crankme69
New Member
Nice Burb & great job with that swap, thanks for sharing the documentation & pics!
Keep us posted...
Keep us posted...
DieselSlug
Well-Known Member
Nah! They can last that. We had a 95 plow truck with 250k on it with original engine and tranny. My current truck has 210 on it of hard plowing, employees used it so you know its been beat, kinda feels like it has, but its still going. Tranny shifts strong, i was going to rebuild mine also when i rebuilt my engine, but funds ran low so i skipped that. Tougher than you think. Just dont go slamming into reverse when your moving forward. Nice burb, def worth the money, i rebuilt mine and its a rot box, just cant get rid of it...
bobbiemartin
Author of The DB2 Conversion Guide
It runs! I now have the engine in and running. Only had one major problem. Its a little embarrassing and could have ended up badly but all is OK now. Got the motor all ready to start and after getting all the air out of the system it fired right up. Had a small leak in one of the transmission cooler fittings at the radiator, but that was an easy fix. After letting it idle, I went for a test drive. All seemed well, but no boost and kind of high EGTs. Tried adjusting the Turbomaster, but no changes. So came back and pulled the air inlet off the turbo and it won't spin. After turning it back and forth, it spins free. Started it up, and it locks up again. Again, I can get it free but locks up as soon as its started. So I have to remove the turbo. Its locked up when I remove it, so I figure I can examine it and maybe sort it out. Get it off and remove the exhaust elbow to look at the exhaust turbine. Its spinning free. Then I notice a small bolt, maybe 4 or 5 mm laying under the turbo and its covered in soot. I know I haven't removed anything like that so figure it fell out of the turbo. I examine the turbine and all looks good but there is a shiny spot inside the turbine housing, probably where the bolt was lodged. So I put it all back together and start it up with the air inlet tube off. The turbo is spinning away, so I shut it off and put the air cleaner on. A quick test drive and the boost comes right up and EGTs are good. The only thing I can figure is while I have the crossover off somehow the bolt got dropped into the crossover and got blown up into the turbo when it started. Luckily, it happened right away not going down the road when the turbo was spinning. That will teach me to blow out the crossover before installing it next time! I still have to tie up some wires and stuff and make some fine tuning adjustments. But I'm pretty happy with the way it runs now.
Need to clean up the wires on the firewall. Yellow wire ending by cruise control box is for trans temp gauge, I need to run that down to the transmission. Big red wire in front is the new 1 gauge battery cable. Remote mounted OPS work great and will make life much easier should they need changing, but I'm hoping they last longer since the engine is not constantly shaking them.
Still need to install the AC accumulator & charge the system. Don't really need it with the freezing weather we have now, even in Florida! Heater hoses are not connected yet, I'm going to flush the block & radiator and didn't want all that stuff going through the heater cores. I also need to make some sort of restrictor for the heater hose to the thermostat crossover to match the original snap in one. Changed to top mounted battery cables. Negative cable is 2 gauge. Factory negative cable had a ground wire coming from battery to a ground on the inner fender. I didn't want an extra wire out of terminal, so I have a ground wire running from the same stud the battery cable attaches to on the intake back to the fender. The positive cable is 1 gauge, goes from starter to dual ended battery terminal across the radiator shroud to the other battery.
Left battery positive terminal has 3 connections, so I used an adapter with a stud. The battery cable connects here along with a new 6 gauge wire to the fuse box and a new wire to the alternator which still has the fusible link. Negative cable is the same as the other.
One of the things I did was to install a new style water pump with the thread on fan clutch. After reading Heath's article on cooling, I looked through Hayden's catalog. I found that Hayden has a new fan clutch called a "Truck Fan Drive". The Truck Fan clutch is made for medium duty trucks, such as the Kodiak or Top Kick trucks. This is an upgrade from the normal Severe Duty fan clutch listed for our trucks. I had to do a little digging, but I found one that fits my water pump and bolts on the Duramax fan. I don't know if this is the one Heath sells, but that is what I installed. I'll find out this summer how it works. Going back to the single thermostat makes installing the throttle & cruise cables to the DB2 so much easier, I recommend the single thermostat crossover to anyone converting to a DB2.
The battery cables sure make a difference. The starter seems to spin much faster and the alternator shows more of a charge. I wish I had done them sooner.
This weekend should get it pretty well wrapped up. I still have a project or two in mind, but my goal was to increase the reliability and I think the mods I did will achieve that goal. I'll post a follow up once its all done.
Need to clean up the wires on the firewall. Yellow wire ending by cruise control box is for trans temp gauge, I need to run that down to the transmission. Big red wire in front is the new 1 gauge battery cable. Remote mounted OPS work great and will make life much easier should they need changing, but I'm hoping they last longer since the engine is not constantly shaking them.
Still need to install the AC accumulator & charge the system. Don't really need it with the freezing weather we have now, even in Florida! Heater hoses are not connected yet, I'm going to flush the block & radiator and didn't want all that stuff going through the heater cores. I also need to make some sort of restrictor for the heater hose to the thermostat crossover to match the original snap in one. Changed to top mounted battery cables. Negative cable is 2 gauge. Factory negative cable had a ground wire coming from battery to a ground on the inner fender. I didn't want an extra wire out of terminal, so I have a ground wire running from the same stud the battery cable attaches to on the intake back to the fender. The positive cable is 1 gauge, goes from starter to dual ended battery terminal across the radiator shroud to the other battery.
Left battery positive terminal has 3 connections, so I used an adapter with a stud. The battery cable connects here along with a new 6 gauge wire to the fuse box and a new wire to the alternator which still has the fusible link. Negative cable is the same as the other.
One of the things I did was to install a new style water pump with the thread on fan clutch. After reading Heath's article on cooling, I looked through Hayden's catalog. I found that Hayden has a new fan clutch called a "Truck Fan Drive". The Truck Fan clutch is made for medium duty trucks, such as the Kodiak or Top Kick trucks. This is an upgrade from the normal Severe Duty fan clutch listed for our trucks. I had to do a little digging, but I found one that fits my water pump and bolts on the Duramax fan. I don't know if this is the one Heath sells, but that is what I installed. I'll find out this summer how it works. Going back to the single thermostat makes installing the throttle & cruise cables to the DB2 so much easier, I recommend the single thermostat crossover to anyone converting to a DB2.
The battery cables sure make a difference. The starter seems to spin much faster and the alternator shows more of a charge. I wish I had done them sooner.
This weekend should get it pretty well wrapped up. I still have a project or two in mind, but my goal was to increase the reliability and I think the mods I did will achieve that goal. I'll post a follow up once its all done.
DieselSlug
Well-Known Member
Very nice job!
Gulfsurfer
Member
- Messages
- 42
- Reaction score
- 3
Bobbie: nice job on your project and the thread! I'll refer back to it if I ever yank my engine/trans. Kind of un-nerving to find out that you were driving around with cracked main brg supports(?). Makes me wonder about mine.
One of my rear heater's aluminum downtubes between the engine/bell-housing and the firewall tubes has a pin-hole that I can't change easily w/o yanking the trans. That's the only reason I would need to do it, right now anyway.
I'd also like to replace the heat/sound shield at some point in time.
Just installed the TM I got from you, works fine. I Never-Seized the rod and linkage, adjusted to 9PSIG or so max boost. Removed the vac pump.
One of my rear heater's aluminum downtubes between the engine/bell-housing and the firewall tubes has a pin-hole that I can't change easily w/o yanking the trans. That's the only reason I would need to do it, right now anyway.
I'd also like to replace the heat/sound shield at some point in time.
Just installed the TM I got from you, works fine. I Never-Seized the rod and linkage, adjusted to 9PSIG or so max boost. Removed the vac pump.
bobbiemartin
Author of The DB2 Conversion Guide
Thanks! On the cracked block, there was absolutely no outward indication of a problem. It ran fine, no unusual noise. The only thing that tipped me off was the elevated chrome & iron in the oil analysis.
On the heater tubes, you should be able to remove them without removing the transmission. I removed them prior to removing the engine & transmission and installed after the engine & trans were in place. It is tight and with everything else, especially the accumulator its very tight in there. Removal was very hard on my truck as the firewall insulation had fallen down and made it very hard to get to the engine to transmission bolts. In fact, once I got the tubes out of the way I had decided to eliminate the rear heater. However, with the new firewall insulation, reassembly was easier. Here is a diagram of the heater tubes, part 12 is the engine to trans bolt.
On the firewall insulation, I doubt you will find one at your GM dealer. They are NLA from GM and I got the last one in the parts locator system, so unless another pops up somewhere, there are no more. I would probably use Dynamat underhood insulation or something like that.
Thanks again and glad the TM is working out OK.
Big T
Well-Known Member
"I found that Hayden has a new fan clutch called a "Truck Fan Drive". The Truck Fan clutch is made for medium duty trucks, such as the Kodiak or Top Kick trucks. This is an upgrade from the normal Severe Duty fan clutch listed for our trucks. I had to do a little digging, but I found one that fits my water pump and bolts on the Duramax fan. I don't know if this is the one Heath sells, but that is what I installed."
Same model that Heath sells, but with a temp profile on the clutch spec'd to our 6.5TD engines.
Same model that Heath sells, but with a temp profile on the clutch spec'd to our 6.5TD engines.
You have alot of work in that for sure.
On my ds4 to db2 swap I just turned the dual Tstat upside down. That meant making a custom hose from the stock one and another that made the new bend, but by doing that it now got in the way of the upper intake so I got one from penniscular (sp?) and plumbed it in.
On my ds4 to db2 swap I just turned the dual Tstat upside down. That meant making a custom hose from the stock one and another that made the new bend, but by doing that it now got in the way of the upper intake so I got one from penniscular (sp?) and plumbed it in.
Veg_Out
Walking J Designs
I love that intake with the Penninsular. How can I part that together. Just looks better, and allows access to the pump better, and it's got to flow at least as well.
bobbiemartin
Author of The DB2 Conversion Guide
According to Hayden, the fan clutch for the 6.5 and the one I used have the same on/off temp ratings.
I just called Penninsular and ordered it. It was around $85 shipped. Then you need 3" plumbing and a 3X2 1/2" reducer at the turbo. I got a 3" elbow off ebay and the rest I robed from one of my air filter kits. If you have trouble let me know.
bobbiemartin
Author of The DB2 Conversion Guide
Well, some good news and some bad news on the Suburban. First the good news, the engine is in and I have actually driven it around. Since I was doing all the other work, I decided to install a new radiator, a new oil cooler and Earls steel braided hoses.
Pretty much everything is done here except installing the AC accumulator and charging the AC up. Wires at the back need to be tied up as well. Remote mounted OPS work great.
New battery cables spin the starter better than ever.
Left battery has a terminal to connect the cable, wire to fuse box and alternator. Cruise box mounted where it should be and works great.
Single thermostat sure simplifies the throttle & cruise cables and allows the use of the cold start fast idle solenoid. Fuel pressure sending unit on fuel manager works very well.
You can just see the brass fitting for the heater hose to the water crossover. After realizing there was a restriction on the original snap in fitting, I installed a brass AN fitting with the corresponding fitting on the hose with a home made restrictor.
Here is the restrictor for the fitting. I took a brass reducer bushing and turned it down to a nice press fit into the fitting and then drilled it to the same size restriction hole as the original fitting. It works great, both heaters work as they should. Plus, it will never leak like the factory snap in fitting.
So now we are to the part where I tell you how well its runs and how happy I am with all my work. Well as much as I would like to tell you that, this is the part where I tell you the bad news. After getting it running, I noticed it seemed to puff a little white smoke at startup. It also started pressurizing the cooling system. It never showed water in the oil, but I knew something was wrong. Hoping it was a head gasket, I removed the left head and found a crack at the top of #8 cylinder. Not a huge one, but big enough. So now I get to remove the engine and start over.
Fortunately, I have located a real AM General engine. It has the diamonds in the valley and says GEP on the valve covers, so it looks to be the real deal. I think its an N date code, so that would be 2006. I plan to pick it up this weekend. So, stay tuned for my next thread "Building up the Suburban Engine"!
Pretty much everything is done here except installing the AC accumulator and charging the AC up. Wires at the back need to be tied up as well. Remote mounted OPS work great.
New battery cables spin the starter better than ever.
Left battery has a terminal to connect the cable, wire to fuse box and alternator. Cruise box mounted where it should be and works great.
Single thermostat sure simplifies the throttle & cruise cables and allows the use of the cold start fast idle solenoid. Fuel pressure sending unit on fuel manager works very well.
You can just see the brass fitting for the heater hose to the water crossover. After realizing there was a restriction on the original snap in fitting, I installed a brass AN fitting with the corresponding fitting on the hose with a home made restrictor.
Here is the restrictor for the fitting. I took a brass reducer bushing and turned it down to a nice press fit into the fitting and then drilled it to the same size restriction hole as the original fitting. It works great, both heaters work as they should. Plus, it will never leak like the factory snap in fitting.
So now we are to the part where I tell you how well its runs and how happy I am with all my work. Well as much as I would like to tell you that, this is the part where I tell you the bad news. After getting it running, I noticed it seemed to puff a little white smoke at startup. It also started pressurizing the cooling system. It never showed water in the oil, but I knew something was wrong. Hoping it was a head gasket, I removed the left head and found a crack at the top of #8 cylinder. Not a huge one, but big enough. So now I get to remove the engine and start over.
Fortunately, I have located a real AM General engine. It has the diamonds in the valley and says GEP on the valve covers, so it looks to be the real deal. I think its an N date code, so that would be 2006. I plan to pick it up this weekend. So, stay tuned for my next thread "Building up the Suburban Engine"!
ak diesel driver
6.5 driver
Bummer!!!
I like your work. Sucks about the head crack. Looks like a Fuel pressure tap on the filter?
bobbiemartin
Author of The DB2 Conversion Guide
Thanks. There is a fuel pressure sending unit on the fuel manager. Its connected to the "Service Throttle Soon" light. Comes on at 3 PSI, so I see it under acceleration. I have a fix in mind, but need to get it running right first.