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New Ride

I was under the hood looking around tonight and noticed a "non-factory" wiring harness in a nice black wire loom running across the back of the engine and behind a plastic cover. I pulled the cover off and found a nicely mounted relay with good quality heat shrink connectors going to it. I followed the harness back the other direction and it goes to the OPS harness.

Cool....that's another necessary mod already done for me, the other being the remote PMD mount. So I guess one of the previous owners knew a little something about the 6.5's, or at least frequented the forums and went from there.
 
Run your vin number on comp nines website that has the vin/rpo code decoder. If you look at your rpo codes GT4 should mean 3.73 gears, GT5 is 4.10.

Nice burb though, real nice. I'm jealous. Its hard to find the older interior style without it being some terrible red color.
 
Good deal.

I see on your past truck you did the cooling system upgrade, how much of a difference did that make. When i'm pulling a trailer with some weight behind my 6.5, it'll get a little warm, like around 200. How much of a difference did the Max Torque chip do for you as well. I've been thinking about doing both of those.
 
I can't say how much of an improvement the cooling system upgrade was. The truck needed a water pump when I got it, so I put the HO pump on it right after I bought the truck and before I towed with it. I can say that, with the HO pump, it did great as far as towing temps go. My guage in the dash would stay right around 200 - 215 ish all the time anyway, even without towing. Clean radiator, new thermostat, HO water pump, fan clutch working properly, 9 blade fan, etc. I used my infared thermometer a few times on the water crossover, thermostat housing, radiator, etc and it always showed 190-197 even when the guage showed more. I guess the guage was just a little off. Search around on the forums a little about the fan. I found a factory 9 blade fan on e-bay and put it on my 95. A lot of guys have the part number for a plastic fan for a duramax that supposedly fits right on your fan clutch and moves a lot more air than the factory 6.5 fan does.

The max-torque chip made a world of difference over the stock chip. It really was like driving a totally different truck. You read that a lot when people talk about chips for a 6.5, it's true in my experience. The chip was the 2nd mod that I did to the 95. I straight piped the factory exhaust and then put the chip in. I got the max-torque chip pretty cheap off a fellow member who had totaled his truck, and I just to see how much of a difference the aftermarket chip would actually make. Everything about the way it drove improved.... get up and go, towing power, drivability, no more check engine light for overboost (I had a home made turbomaster on it), so on and so on. I definately recommend some type of chip as a big improvement for your truck.

If I were going to buy another chip, which I will at some point for the suburban, I will buy the "KOJO" chip because it's custom made for your mods and for what you use the truck for, towing, normal driving, plowing, etc. I am not advertising for him or anything, I just mentioned him because he is the only person that I am aware of that custom burns chips for 6.5's. There are several other vendors out there that have chips for 6.5's, but they aren't burnt based on the mods you have done to your particular truck or based on what you intend to do with your truck.... more of a "one size fits all" kinda chip.
 
Chief915 said:
The oil filter adapter is seeping between the adapter and the block too. I already ordered the 3 o-rings for it, but for the mean time, I tightened the bolt about 1/4 turn and it slowed down quite a bit.

That's the last obvious leak I see. Once I get the new o-rings in it I will degrease everything really good and take another look around.
Click to expand...

Replaced the oil filter adapter o-rings tonight and changed the oil..... No more leaks from the adapter :D
 
Tonight I replaced the alternator. It had a really annoying squeak to it about twice per revolution, it still charged fine, but was getting loud and probably was on it's way out.

I also did a few other little things too, got a new stereo (with IPOD plug in and CD) from Advance Auto on sale for $79, put new wiper blades on, upgraded my battery to ALT cable with 4 ga wire, fixed the corner marker light bulbs that were blown, and replaced the serp belt.
 
Mods...... Can you please move this thread to the "project central" catagory?

I want to keep posting in this thread as I fix things, so I think it fits a lot better in the project area.

Thanks in advance
 
Chief915 said:
Mods...... Can you please move this thread to the "project central" catagory?

I want to keep posting in this thread as I fix things, so I think it fits a lot better in the project area.

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

Moved as per requested! :thumbsup:
 
Spent a lot of money over the last couple days...... I ordered a chip from Heath on Thrusday, a severe duty fan clutch, duramax fan, shocks, an AC Delco OPS from Rock Auto on Wednesday, and a gauge pod, egt guage and boost gauge from summit today.
 
Well I decided to put the HO water pump on tonight since the new fan clutch and d-max fan will be here tomorrow. I figured with 242,000 on the clock, and since I was almost down to it anyway, I might as well replace the timing chain while I was in there. I pulled the dampner, which looks almost new, and timing cover to find only about 1/4" to 5/16" slack in the old chain..... Looks like someone had this same idea not too long ago.

I put the new chain on, which was a pain getting the new chain to "stretch" enough to get the cam sprocket high enough to go back on the cam.... but it finally did.

I am going to spend the rest of tonight cleaning and painting parts..... Then put it back together tomorrow.

radiator 3.jpgwater pump before.jpgtiming chain.jpgradiator 2.jpg
 
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Im pretty sure you must have seen in my build thread how I cleaned a bunch of parts before paint. In the shrimp boiler with purple power mix. Works great, the parts come out sqweeky clean.
 
I did...... it looked like it worked great.

I am going to have to start keeping an eye out for a shrimp boiler....
 
That looks nice. It looks like my neighboor gasser. Sounds like great find with all the expensive mods already.
 
JMJNet said:
That looks nice. It looks like my neighboor gasser. Sounds like great find with all the expensive mods already.
Click to expand...

Thanks

The only mods that were already done when I got it was the OPS relay mod and the remote PMD, I have done the rest of the mods since I got the truck. I don't think to take "before and after" pics until I am done with the project lol.
 
New water pump, timing chain, severe duty fan clutch, and d-max fan are all on and everthing is back together. TDCO ended up at -1.23, not bad for just eyeballing the pump when I put the timing cover back on. I noticed the timing seems more stable now, on the scan tech, it ran great before but the actual timing seemed to jump around .3 degrees or so before.... Now it stay's nice and steady.... Don't know if the new timing chain has anything to do with that or not. The old one I replaced only had a little slack, not bad at all and definately within acceptable limits.

Also added a before and after pic of the pump area and general appearance.
 

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Reset the TDCO to -1.94 again after the timing chain and water pump replacement. My Heath P-series chip showed up yesterday too. I put it in and went for a drive.... very impressed with it so far.
 
Went for a 1,800 mile round trip drive to Ohio and back over the 4th of July weekend. Everything went great, no problems at all. I averaged 18 MPG with the cruise set on 70-75 the whole way. The odometer rolled over 244,000 on the way home.
 
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