The "restification" of a 98 6.5 TD...

[great white]

The first posts in this thread is a transfer of my "introduce yourself" thread to a more permanent home where I can keep it updated as the truck progresses.

1998 6.5 TD k2500 SLE, ECLB, new to me last week. My first diesel but not first 88-98 chev truck. No rust, high kms (400,000). He was asking 7500, the wife (yes, the wife!) got him down to 5000. I told the wife what was wrong with it, but let her negotiate because I wanted the truck too badly to be objective. Heck, she got 2500 bucks off the price! I'm letting her buy all my vehicles from now on!

It's first job was working for a BC logging company, then moved on to the PO who was a duck hunter. Its lived a hard life and I intend to give it a good retirement with a "restification" to be used as my daily driver. Modifications will be limited and only meant to enhance the qualities already present in what is a great truck.

So, the list of what's been done so far:

Interior-
removed and shampooed front and rear seats
removed and shampooed carpet. Found the jute backing was soaking wet (used it as a duck hunting truck), let it dry for 2 days.
soap and water wash dash and door panels.
removed the 12 (yes, 12!) little green xmas tree air fresheners (smell was almost making me sick!). He was trying to cover up the wet Labrador Retriever smell (it was a duck hunting truck, remember?)
Fix faulty solder joints on 4x4 switch, works fine now.
Installed over head console with DIC and homelink.
Fixed cut release cable on rear bench seat
fixed front seat release on passenger side to access rear of cab

Body and chassis-
Driver side door pins and bushes
Replaced drivers door handle (broken)
replaced tailgate handle (seized), installed a "pop lock" on tailgate
Removed plastic "skidplate" and installed all aluminum skidplating (front, axle and transfer case)
removed front frame mounted 2" receiver hitch and installed lower bumper plastic valance
Full body wash, still have to compound, wax and buff.
Adjusted hood and body gaps

Engine-
complete wash and degrease
air fuel and oil filter. Oil change (Rotella T)
CDR valve
Dropped some Kleen flow additive in the fuel (quieted it down quite a bit)

To go-
new injectors
New windshield (cracked)
Power mirror remote switch (fixed it by re-soldering circuit traces in switch itself)
Front end alignment (pulls to the right) - DONE
replace steering wheel (400,000 kms of wear on it)
trans filter and oil change
Axle oil change
Stereo change (decided to keep the factory radio, see posts below)
install tailgate hinge points (badly worn)
remove corroded tailgate cable and replace with earlier model "bars".

Misc info and bits-
Bought a factory service manual off ebay for 15 bucks. All four volumes!
Bought a second remote (only came with one)
Cut more keys (came with only one)
Bought 1998 sierra owners manual off ebay (anyone have a 1998 diesel supplement they want to part with?)

Eventually-
rebuild engine (300,000+ kms on it now and has some "smokey" blow-by, still runs well though!). Nothing special, maybe just a fresh stock longblock. NO REMANS!
remove body dings/damage
repaint
assorted other maintenance items/hard parts
replace rear seat belt (it's been cut halfway through somehow)
New door panels (few rips, discoloration)
New carpet (stained) new rear seat.
swap on my new BFG KO's (when the current ones wear out, about a year left on them)
Swap out the inner/outer tie rods and sleeves for new ones I have on the shelf (little slop in the steering. Ditto with the pitman arm. - DONE

That's about it, of the top of my head.....

Here's pics from the "for sale add" and how it was when I picked it up:

 

[great white]

Pulled the remote mirror switch out today. Pulled it apart and found several of the circuit traces had either burn away or deteriorated.

Whipped out he ol' soldering iron, contact cleaner and a few bits of copper stands (for jumpers) and the switch is "okely dokely" again.

Then, lubed and cleaned the exterior mirror screw adjusters. Works like new.

Cost:

$0

 

[great white]

Time to start on some audio stuff.

Ordered this today:

I'll have to unplug the factory CD player, but who really uses them anymore? Not me, it's all on ipod....

Next, I'm going to pull apart the factory radio and fix a few burnt out bulbs.

After that, my MB Quart 6.5 components will go into the doors.

Then I'll shop around for a good LOC, pop in my pioneer amps and find a place for my clarion shallow mount 10" (it's all left over stuff from other projects).

Biggest difference will be when I collect enough cash to dynamat (or whatever is the best price vs performance at the time) the cab.

finally, I'll look into adding steering wheel audio controls and that will be the end of the "audio build up".

There'll be nothing "big" or "expensive" going into this truck, but it should sound OK. As a side bonus, the dynamat should shut the diesel up a bit too.

On another note:

I gotta say, I'm really beginning to like the sound of the turbo as it spools up and down when I accelerate. I find myself looking for excuses to run 'er hard and hear that whine...

 

[great white]

bulbs changed out in radio, looks good!

Short write up to follow....

 

[great white]

So, time for the promised write up on bulb changing in the Delco radio:

Pull the radio out of the dash (I'll assume you can already do this) and take it somewhere you can work on it:

I usually use my workbench in the garage, but the wife wasn't home so I did it in front of the 42" plasma screen.......:thumbsup:

Pull the "knobs" off the front of the radio to expose the nut under the volume:

Remove the nut.

Remove the top (or bottom, depending on how you look at it):

There's 4 screws you need to remove. If the panel just pulls off or you don't see what's pictured above, you have the wrong "top".

Now you need to disconnect the green wire connectors for the red and white wire bundles to the face plate:

The connectors are like most computer connectors, you need to gently pry up each edge to get them to release. DO NOT PULL BY THE WIRES:

Remove the face plate by GENTLY prying up the tabs and pulling the face forward. Only pry up the tabs enoguh to barely clear the slots they are engaged in. Go too far and they will snap off and your face plate will be loose at best or it will fall off at worst:

Remove the shield with the foam rubber backing. You need this off to get to the 2.5 MM screw underneath unless you have a 2.5mm nut driver (I don't):

It just pulls off with some effort. You may end up deforming it a bit. No worries, it bends right back with a little bit of effort. If you have a very thin bladed tool (DO NOT USE A SHARP BLADE!) you can use it to "fool" the small hooks (they are punched in the sheet metal) loose that hold it in place as you pull.

Remove the screws that hold the printed circuit board on to the plastic face:

Once they're all out, the printed circuit board will lift free. Flip it over and you'll see the offending bulbs:

Use your soldering iron to melt the solder holding them in. I heat the legs and "walk" the bulb out, a little bit on each leg at a time.

Then, use a solder sucker, solder wick or blow air through the holes to remove the remaining solder while it's still melted. Be very careful if you us air because that damn solder burns!

Grab your 12v - 50 ma minibulbs and open up the packages.

Now, simply solder the new lights you picked up at radio shack or an online source in the circuit board. Once they're soldered in, clip the extra length off the bulb "legs". Don't worry about the little black cup on the original bulbs, you don't need them.

Finally, assemble the radio in reverse order you took it apart. Note: be very careful NOT to touch the display glass or the inside of the blue shield/window in the face palate or you'll be taking it apart again to clean that greasy thumb print you just made. Trust me, it'll drive you nuts! Also, guard against bits of lint, dirt or dust getting in there or you'll be taking it apart to clean it again....

Welcome to being able to see your radio buttons in the dark again....:thumbsup:

 

[great white]

Little bit of work done today:

Pulled the passenger side inner and outer ties rods and replaced them along with the adjuster sleeve.

Replaced the original OEM passenger side shock for a Monroe Gas magnum HD shock.

Tomorrow evening, I'll do the same on the driver side.

Then off to the alignment rack on Friday morning...

 

[great white]

Just found out today, my truck has the full floating 10.5 inch rear axle.

 

[great white]

Replaced the front and rear shocks with some Monroe Gas Magnums yesterday. It still had the originals (400,000 kms!) on the rear.
Needless to say, both front and rear shocks were pretty "flat".

I also got the chance to swap on my new pitman arm. Whoever designed the front steering gear on these truck should be shot.....):h

Also go the Ipod adapter installed. Works pretty good. Sound quality is as good as the ipod gets and stereo controls work fine, if not a very slight delay. I's going to fab up a custom flip out piece for my 60/40 armrest to hold the ipod when open and a quick flip closed will hide it all when I leave the truck. then time to looks for some steering wheel audio controls....

 

[great white]

And, now I'm caught up to the current day.

Work done today:

Pulled front grill off and plastic welded a broken piece below the passenger side parking light.

Pulled the parking lights out and plastic polished them nice and clear (well, as clear as they get), washed out the housings, clear up the good bulbs, replaced the bad.

Then, polished the headlights nice and clear. Also discovered one had what was left of a shattered bulb in it. Cleaned that out and discovered the bulb must have popped and had melted a hole in the lower part of the housing. That would explain the constant fogging issue I've been having. A little bit of epoxy and it's all sealed up again.

A quick wash cleaned off more of the green scum that has been growing on the truck from all it's years in the woods.

Hit the hood with the buffer and "light cut" 3m compound. Managed to remove the hood scratches left by a plastic bug deflector that departed before I bought the truck.

Finished off with a good sweep out of the duraliner-ed bed, followed by a good scrub and wash to clean the rest of the baked on dirt out of the bed.

Tomorrow is another day and I'm on holidays so we'll see what gets done.

I'm thinking of making a bracket to support the middle of the grill. The grill assembly seems to sag a bit in the middle which allows the hood gap to "open" in the center. Probably cut off tie down brackets the first owner had welded on (welded? seriously, to the frame? what were they thinking?) for the slide in camper they used when logging.
I may get to install my 6.5 MB Quart components in the doors.

I'll also see about reshaping the front bumper. The PO whacked something and pushed the bumper back and up on the passenger side. Just enough tot notice...

On another note, I'm considering a set of "rocker pods" for the truck:

I getting to the point where steps would be beneficial, but these look a little nicer and give a bit of storage. They'll also offer some protection for the rocker panels from stones and what-not. Only problem is: they're not exactly inexpensive....

 

[Burning oil]

Your Doing a real nice job. My brother R&R'ed the radio and a/c controls with LEDs.

 

[tanman_2006]

Sounds like you're well on your way to having an amazing truck!

On the factoy stereo I swaped in a factory 98+ unit that has a CD player and no casset player and I bet the ipod hook up would work on that for those that want to have cd and ipod. Stereo looks stock and is a direct swap.

I would do a compression test before you get too far into doing a rebuild. Alot of hard miles doesn't always condem these trucks. My Ol' Blue truck has 300,000+ hard miles on it, thats close to 500,000km it still ran fine when it was parked, the rest of the drivetrain and running gear was falling out from under it though.

You say upgrades are limited but you should definately relocate PMD w/ #9 resistor. Exaust, gauges, and IMO a PCM Reflash would be worth the time too. That shouldn't be too expensive if spread out over time and I would do these in that order

 

[great white]

Sounds like you're well on your way to having an amazing truck!

On the factoy stereo I swaped in a factory 98+ unit that has a CD player and no casset player and I bet the ipod hook up would work on that for those that want to have cd and ipod. Stereo looks stock and is a direct swap.

I would do a compression test before you get too far into doing a rebuild. Alot of hard miles doesn't always condem these trucks. My Ol' Blue truck has 300,000+ hard miles on it, thats close to 500,000km it still ran fine when it was parked, the rest of the drivetrain and running gear was falling out from under it though.

You say upgrades are limited but you should definately relocate PMD w/ #9 resistor. Exaust, gauges, and IMO a PCM Reflash would be worth the time too. That shouldn't be too expensive if spread out over time and I would do these in that order

PMD is already relocated, but it's hanging of the upper rad hose support. I'm looking to move it into the bumper though as there's still lots of slack left in the cable. still haven't checked it out...

Exhaust will come with time, I can't justify cutting off the factory system that's on there right now (IE: spend the money), nothing wrong with it.

Gauges are a given (again, with time) with the EGT to come first. Also, expect added filtration for both fuel fuel and oil. Fuel heater might also be in the future (gets bloody cold in Canadian winters).

PCm reflash? Meh, maybe, maybe not. Not that important to me. I'm looking for longevity and MPG.

 

[JiFaire]

Nice work on the radio! Not too many people are that handy with electronics and PCB soldering!

Thanks for the pics ... mind if I link this thread into the 6.5 Tech Library?

***on edit - hope not; I just did - under "R for Radio" ***

 

[tanman_2006]

Nice work on the radio! Not too many people are that handy with electronics and PCB soldering!

Thanks for the pics ... mind if I link this thread into the 6.5 Tech Library?

***on edit - hope not; I just did - under "R for Radio" ***

It's good stuff. I won't touch that stuff!

 

[great white]

Nice work on the radio! Not too many people are that handy with electronics and PCB soldering!

Thanks for the pics ... mind if I link this thread into the 6.5 Tech Library?

***on edit - hope not; I just did - under "R for Radio" ***

Don't mind one bit....:thumbsup:

 

[Veg_Out]

I now recommend that everyone changes their harmonic balancer and crankshaft pulley every 100k miles. I also recommend that you remove and have your injectors tested and balanced.

 

[great white]

I now recommend that everyone changes their harmonic balancer and crankshaft pulley every 100k miles. I also recommend that you remove and have your injectors tested and balanced.

That's all on the short list (injector replacement actually), but my wallet is only so thick.....and getting thinner by the day.....:sad:

 

[great white]

My PMD has already been taken off the IP and mounted remotely. The PPO (previous previous owner) had fabbed up his own extention harness and mounted the PMD (now a FSD) on the bracket for the upper rad hose support:

Now, I don't see any real issue with this, but several other members were aghast that it was still in the engine bay. Meh, no big I thought. It's mostly away from the heat soak situ and in the fan wash. However, a quick peruse of the Heath diesel site reveals their kit mounts the PMD on the skidplate.

Hmmm.......maybe there is something to this after all.....

So, lets begin the relocation of my PMD.

The skid plate is just not an ideal location in my opinion. In defense of the location, it has lots of surface area to spread the heat and it's aluminum which conducts heat excellently, all a major plus. However, it's just a wee bit too low for my tastes, exposed to impact (unlike most 4x4's these days, I occasionally...ahem... "test"... my skidplating ) and my truck still slings a bit of oil around the engine compartment (still chasing down all the leaks - yes, I know- front seal, damper issues, yadda yadda).

That leaves the bumper "nostril", another area of choice for most 6.5'ers.

Yup, that's where it will go. Bumper nostril. My truck is gonna get a "booger"...

First things first, pull off the PMD and clean it up with some electrical component cleaner:

Luckily, the harness extension is long enough to reach the bumper with some slack for strain relief so that is one less issue to deal with. Wouldn't have been a big deal anyways, fabbing up an extension harness only would have taken me an hour or so.

But, I'll need a bracket. First thing I did was to pull the front end off the truck:

It all comes off quick (quicker with my air tools ):h) and I like unfettered access when I'm working. Saves lots of cursing and swearing, give lots of access for prototyping and shape testing, not to mention saving me innumerable amounts of cuts and nicks. It also gave me the opportunity to mount my exterior temperature sensor for my overhead console temp display and hammer out some bumper dents that have been bugging me for a while:

You can see the added temp sensor just above the horn on the same bracket.

Since I don't enjoy working on the cold floor on my hands and knees and my back doesn't tolerate being bent over for long periods of time anymore, let's mount that puppy in a workmate bench:

Ah, finally ready to get to work.

Now to begin fabbing a bracket for the heat sink. I use the tried and true method of cardboard mock up/template building:

That's pretty close to a finished product. I made a small bend on the back of the FSD bracket in order to give water a place to run off without dripping on the FSD or the connectors. It also give the bracket strength along it's length. I used one of the license plate bolts and one of the plastic valance bolts as mounting points.

I then took it off and flattened it out. So now I have my template:

Now I can copy it to some aluminum sheet stock:

I'm not poor, but I'm not also what you would call flush so I "recycled" an aluminum clip board I had lying around. I love working with aluminum!

Now I need to cut it out:

Yup, jig saw. Wood blade too. General rule of thumb: if the tool will cut wood, it will cut aluminum...

Got it all cut out and filed smooth:

Now I need to replicate the bends in the cardboard template:

I've got a couple metal bending tools (I love working with metal) that makes my life easier but you can get away with a bench vice and hammer, or some hardwood and clamps or a couple pieces of flat stock to clamp it in and then hammer away.

A little bit of work later and some time at the drill press gets you something like this:

This was the beginning of the metal work. I didn't take pics, but I added a "wing" to the other side of it that fastened to the upper bumper bolt, a couple "tabs" that the heat sink bolts to and a brace to support the heat sink from the bottom to take the "gigglies" out of the assembly.

A final drilling of two rows of 9/64 holes (two per each heat sink fin void) to allow heat to escape straight up were also added.

A shot of trim black hides the bracket in the opening and the heat sink is already anodized black:

All that's left is to put it all back together and plug in the PMD.

Now, step back and admire my work:

If that don't keep that sucker cool, I don't know what will.....:thumbsup:

 

[JiFaire]

Nice! It's all about thermal gradient... if there is significant difference between the ambient air and the heat sink, the heat sink =will shed heat faster than it can absorb it from the PMD. If the ambient air is hot, then the heat flow is slower, and the heat sink can get fairly hot also - which isn't the best thing for a heat sink to do... that's the point of all that surface area (fins)

Where you have it mounted you won't have that problem... nice work!

 

[Burning oil]

Here is my old version, but on pass side. I stoped this as there is plenty of air flow behind the bumper/licence plate area, more protection from a direct impact of a rock...ect, and also it takes away my foot hold, the bumper hole makes a great step when working on engine.