kimble01
New Member
My wife and I just got our youngest out of the house and an opportunity arose, so we held an estate and contents auction and bought a 1994 Chevy C3500 with the 6.5 and a 36.5' 5th wheel off of ebay (not together) ...some of you long timers probably can guess at some of the rest.
On the first day, sitting there idling nicely after the test drive, the truck suddenly jumped to Wide Open for just a couple seconds, and then it didn't do it again. I had scheduled the pick up of the fifth wheel in Las Vegas for a tight timeline so I picked up my brother and off we went.
We're both former truck drivers so this should have been an easy excursion to sin city. The truck got worse and worse the closer we got to Vegas, we adopted an emergency procedure of shutting off the key and then back on, kick the truck to neutral and restart, could usually get some throttle control back.
As I said, I have never messed with this particular beast, so I had no idea what I was looking at or where to start...So we put it in Don's D.I. Auto Service in Vegas telling them that we were stranded and that we needed to pick up our new 5th wheel today if possible. Of course that wasn't possible. The hooked up the SnapOn scantool and started reading all sorts of codes.
The 5v side was bad somehow, film at 11. So off to Circus Circus we went. The next day, around 10AM I call and ask what's up.
They tell me the injection pump is bad, and they are trying to locate one, truck won't be done today. So I book the room again. I call around 2pm they say they still haven't found one, which translates to...they aren't looking.
I get online to car-part.com, guy at New Carlisle Auto parts has a NEW one for $275 with warranty. This was on a Friday, happened to be Nevada day as well. So I said can you overnight it? He says yeah, it'll leave on Monday be here Tuesday, best I could get. So I said OK...I could have gotten a reman pump from Napa for $1105, nothing else available in town.
On Monday I read an email from New Carlisle saying that the place can't do overnight shipping and call em. So I do, hew has found another pump in Redmond, CA about 4 hours away, they will refund all my money and pay for the overnight shipping for the new part.
So he does, getting FedEx labels to Sierra Auto Recycling and arranging with FedEx to do the pickup. Joe at Sierra called me when the pump was picked up and sent me pictures of the pump.
I was in constant contact with the Don's telling them the part would be delivered the next day. I thought I was all set. Let's see arrived Wednesday night and now we're up to Monday afternoon.
I had booked a timeshare until Tuesday check out, so this was coming down to the wire. The guys at Don's told me they would have the truck torn down an ready for the part to arrive.
I call Don's the next morning, telling them the delivery tracking number sez it should be there, they inform me the truck just left and they've got a box.
So I check out and go to Hector's car lot, where I've bought the 5th wheel from. D&W Auto sales in Las Vegas, I would always o business with them, absolutely outstanding people.
He picks me up drives us to the lot we do all the paperwork, he drops me off at the truck, which is sitting in the parking lot right where I left it. Not torn down, not being worked on, nothing.
I walk in and inquire. He looked me square in the face and said "I didn't know you wanted that put in today." I was floored.
I explained how I was stranded with no place to stay and the only way I was leaving the premises was in my truck with a new injection pump in it.
My brother and I got the privilege of hanging out in their parking lot the rest of the day until we finally were just working on the truck with the mechanic Ray a good Christian man.
The pump got in but not finished. Ray took us to the Stratosphere for that night.
The next morning after checking out, I call they say they are test driving it and they will call when they get back.
An hour later I call, they say it's all done. No one can come to get me, so I take a cab over to the shop. I pay my $565 dollars and I leave. Seems like the truck doesn't have as much power as it did before I took it in, but I don't care at this point, I just want to hook up and go.
We follow Hector out to his dad's place (Hector Sr.) where the trailer is stored, they help us figure out the gooseneck conversion, makes me take $20 bucks for a spring that is broken on the retractor, gives us a tour of the house, fixes us espresso.
Super people. We are finally ready to get under way. It is now approaching dusk, there is quite a bit of traffic.
We are pulling into traffic and I notice my temps are starting to rise, 210 and climbing. I'm in heavy traffic, I'm trying to do at least 55 with this rig. It holds at 210 for a while, then we start a climb and next thing ya know there's steam coming out from under us.
We bundle off the side of the road and let it cool off. When it does we drain the trailer water and put it in the tank to try to get to someplace we could get some antifreeze.
We make it barely and we drove to the thermostat all the from Las Vegas to Little Rock, AR. I moved the injection pump on several occasions thinking that the timing was off and that was contributing to the lack of power, it became nearly driveable past Flagstaff, which took us a full day to reach from Las Vegas.
The truck was kept and managed to (mostly there were some hills that were just too long) 220-230. It was the worst trip of my life.
At one point (I had used my time in Vegas to find this forum as well as the thetruckplace forum) we hooked up the remote-mounted PMD to see if there were a way to get more power (we were pretty desperate at this point) and whaddya know! the random WOT condition returned!
The remote PMD was zip-tied up near the brake cylinder with no heat sink. So it probably wasn't the injection pump at all...
So there's my introduction to the GM 6.5l! I have not taken the radiator out and cleaned the fins, I separated the condenser and leaned the rad forward and cleaned it out as best I could with compressed air and compression fitting on a water hose, there really wasn't a lot in there tho.
The truck drives exceptionally well without a trailer. It has no trouble attaining interstate speeds and is very responsive.
Here's my question and feel free to PM me if this is not the appropriate place: what should be my next steps?
I really like the truck in spite of the problems I had. It seems my options are $2-4k for a repair of the existing engine, $5-6k for a Cummins repower or $10-12k for a Duramax repower. The trailer GVWR is 15k, the empty weight is 8k (should have had no probs coming back from Vegas with this truck).
Thank you for this forum, without it I probably would have sold the truck already! It's a Regency conversion four-door, with power bed cover and the works! Really sharp truck!
On the first day, sitting there idling nicely after the test drive, the truck suddenly jumped to Wide Open for just a couple seconds, and then it didn't do it again. I had scheduled the pick up of the fifth wheel in Las Vegas for a tight timeline so I picked up my brother and off we went.
We're both former truck drivers so this should have been an easy excursion to sin city. The truck got worse and worse the closer we got to Vegas, we adopted an emergency procedure of shutting off the key and then back on, kick the truck to neutral and restart, could usually get some throttle control back.
As I said, I have never messed with this particular beast, so I had no idea what I was looking at or where to start...So we put it in Don's D.I. Auto Service in Vegas telling them that we were stranded and that we needed to pick up our new 5th wheel today if possible. Of course that wasn't possible. The hooked up the SnapOn scantool and started reading all sorts of codes.
The 5v side was bad somehow, film at 11. So off to Circus Circus we went. The next day, around 10AM I call and ask what's up.
They tell me the injection pump is bad, and they are trying to locate one, truck won't be done today. So I book the room again. I call around 2pm they say they still haven't found one, which translates to...they aren't looking.
I get online to car-part.com, guy at New Carlisle Auto parts has a NEW one for $275 with warranty. This was on a Friday, happened to be Nevada day as well. So I said can you overnight it? He says yeah, it'll leave on Monday be here Tuesday, best I could get. So I said OK...I could have gotten a reman pump from Napa for $1105, nothing else available in town.
On Monday I read an email from New Carlisle saying that the place can't do overnight shipping and call em. So I do, hew has found another pump in Redmond, CA about 4 hours away, they will refund all my money and pay for the overnight shipping for the new part.
So he does, getting FedEx labels to Sierra Auto Recycling and arranging with FedEx to do the pickup. Joe at Sierra called me when the pump was picked up and sent me pictures of the pump.
I was in constant contact with the Don's telling them the part would be delivered the next day. I thought I was all set. Let's see arrived Wednesday night and now we're up to Monday afternoon.
I had booked a timeshare until Tuesday check out, so this was coming down to the wire. The guys at Don's told me they would have the truck torn down an ready for the part to arrive.
I call Don's the next morning, telling them the delivery tracking number sez it should be there, they inform me the truck just left and they've got a box.
So I check out and go to Hector's car lot, where I've bought the 5th wheel from. D&W Auto sales in Las Vegas, I would always o business with them, absolutely outstanding people.
He picks me up drives us to the lot we do all the paperwork, he drops me off at the truck, which is sitting in the parking lot right where I left it. Not torn down, not being worked on, nothing.
I walk in and inquire. He looked me square in the face and said "I didn't know you wanted that put in today." I was floored.
I explained how I was stranded with no place to stay and the only way I was leaving the premises was in my truck with a new injection pump in it.
My brother and I got the privilege of hanging out in their parking lot the rest of the day until we finally were just working on the truck with the mechanic Ray a good Christian man.
The pump got in but not finished. Ray took us to the Stratosphere for that night.
The next morning after checking out, I call they say they are test driving it and they will call when they get back.
An hour later I call, they say it's all done. No one can come to get me, so I take a cab over to the shop. I pay my $565 dollars and I leave. Seems like the truck doesn't have as much power as it did before I took it in, but I don't care at this point, I just want to hook up and go.
We follow Hector out to his dad's place (Hector Sr.) where the trailer is stored, they help us figure out the gooseneck conversion, makes me take $20 bucks for a spring that is broken on the retractor, gives us a tour of the house, fixes us espresso.
Super people. We are finally ready to get under way. It is now approaching dusk, there is quite a bit of traffic.
We are pulling into traffic and I notice my temps are starting to rise, 210 and climbing. I'm in heavy traffic, I'm trying to do at least 55 with this rig. It holds at 210 for a while, then we start a climb and next thing ya know there's steam coming out from under us.
We bundle off the side of the road and let it cool off. When it does we drain the trailer water and put it in the tank to try to get to someplace we could get some antifreeze.
We make it barely and we drove to the thermostat all the from Las Vegas to Little Rock, AR. I moved the injection pump on several occasions thinking that the timing was off and that was contributing to the lack of power, it became nearly driveable past Flagstaff, which took us a full day to reach from Las Vegas.
The truck was kept and managed to (mostly there were some hills that were just too long) 220-230. It was the worst trip of my life.
At one point (I had used my time in Vegas to find this forum as well as the thetruckplace forum) we hooked up the remote-mounted PMD to see if there were a way to get more power (we were pretty desperate at this point) and whaddya know! the random WOT condition returned!
The remote PMD was zip-tied up near the brake cylinder with no heat sink. So it probably wasn't the injection pump at all...
So there's my introduction to the GM 6.5l! I have not taken the radiator out and cleaned the fins, I separated the condenser and leaned the rad forward and cleaned it out as best I could with compressed air and compression fitting on a water hose, there really wasn't a lot in there tho.
The truck drives exceptionally well without a trailer. It has no trouble attaining interstate speeds and is very responsive.
Here's my question and feel free to PM me if this is not the appropriate place: what should be my next steps?
I really like the truck in spite of the problems I had. It seems my options are $2-4k for a repair of the existing engine, $5-6k for a Cummins repower or $10-12k for a Duramax repower. The trailer GVWR is 15k, the empty weight is 8k (should have had no probs coming back from Vegas with this truck).
Thank you for this forum, without it I probably would have sold the truck already! It's a Regency conversion four-door, with power bed cover and the works! Really sharp truck!
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