What about the Chevy/GMC 6.5 turbodiesel?

[snowman313]

I work for a fire and ambulance service and we bought a 1995 6.5 liter to try one after all the problems we had with 7.3 non turbo fords and it was the most problematic amblulance we have ever owned even worse than some of the 6.0 and 6.4 fords were suffering through right now. The first issue with the 6.5 was the t-case blew up with 2800 miles all said and done we ran it to just over 100,000 miles and it got 1 transfercase 2 tranys 1 engine and we take a lot of transfers to Salt Lake City and if you toped parleys summit at 40 mph it was a good day with all that being said it was the nicest driving smoothest ride we have ever had. Now we have 3 6.7 liter dodges and so far 0 problems and over parleys at 80 mph so I think the real deisel wins and not the gas motor conversion.

 

[IllianaXJ]

I think the real deisel wins and not the gas motor conversion.

The GM 6.5L is a real diesel. It was developed by Detriot Diesel for GM. The Olds 5.7 diesel was the gas -> diesel conversion (which fully sucked).

Shameless plug - my 6.5 is for sale in the MWC classifieds. No issues with it, just need more interior space. It will be replaced by a 6.5 Suburban whenever it sells.

 

[snowman313]

I won't claim to be an expert because i'm really not but when i asked for the engine back after the dealer changed it we tore it down to see where all the blow by was comming from and so a friend could use some of the parts to repair his for the third time we found 2 pistons with cracks from ring land to ring land and i swear the vaccum pump drive is a distributor hole in a big block.

 

[Gravesdiggerxj]

I rocked a '94 6.5TD suburban limited for a year and a half, put 45,000 miles on it (175,000 total). It had newer 2500HD alloy wheels on it and looked pretty nice. Mexicans always asked my wife why she was putting diesel in it, lol. Bought it strictly to tow with for 1300 cash ended up being our only car for a bit when we first were married try explaining that to your young bride . 4.10 gears. It got 18mpg everywhere empty and a solid 14.8 mpg towing my 6000lb jeep+trailer (verified with 3 trips to st. George and 2 to moab).
Stock specs on the burb were 190hp and 400 lb/ft torque.
Killed one stock PDM: Ran a pdm relocation with a heat sink and a #9 resistor: no issues after that. Felt more seatt 'o the pants power. Changed the fuel filter and it seemed to up the power. Swapped an air filter. It was not that fast but it liked to rev (like 3700rpm towing was not weird). Towed my jeep fine and got 550-600 miles to the tank (it had a big tank).
We let the front diff run dry and it smoked the ring and pinion. Pulled one from the JY and swapped it for $120, I was impressed by the front diff (know as a front 14 bolt: clamshell design 9.75" ring gear, 33 spline inners). Rear was a FF 14 bolt. Cost of ownership was low... that's all the maintainence I did.
It braked well (hydroboost) until we lost the master and abs module in price, UT while towing to Moab... that was it's demise since I wasn't about to pay more for parts than I bought it for. Service underwriter at the dealer had one and needed a motor. Chev dealer gave us 4500 dollars trade on a newer gas superduty to get the Ford off his lot. They fixed our burb and turned around and sold it for $2k a week later.
Heath diesel and a few others make some good parts for them and they can be excellent with some mods.
Convinced my buddy on them he now has a '96 2500 extra cab 2wd that he tows with: for the price of $2k (or something like that) it can't be beat as a cheap tow rig (he does need to swap a 4.10 rear in it... would do better than 3.73's).
It did me right and for as cheap and the use I got out of mine I'd sure as heck buy it again. To this day my wife says she kinda misses the grumbly thing....

 

[kmanxj5050]

From the dead.

My step dad just bought a duramax. I'm thinking about buying his 96 6.5. Its got got 250,000ish miles. Never had any major issues. Would be my first dd/tow pig. It has towed my MJ before and had no issues.

Anybody have a link to how to change the issue that makes the injection pump go?

 

[jeepcomj]

I have never been stranded by a broken down vehicle more times than I have by a 6.5 turbo.

this was a fleet van for the company I worked for, and had been very well maintained. then, in under 11 months of me driving it, it had a pmd RELCOCATION failure, a pump failure, both head gaskets, glow plugs, water pump, freeze plug seeping, oil pump, block heater, etc. and each and every issue it had left me stranded....in places over 500 miles from home.

oh, not to mention the block cracked clear up the middle across both sides.


a buddy bought a 250k mile suburban from texas. under a year, pmd failure, water pump, head gasket, turbo (due to the poo poo oiling system), ECU, glow plug relay, glow plugs, every single fusible link in the glow plug system...the list goes on.


They are flat out garbage. Just my experience with that, and my experience with the spider injection on vortecs is enough that I will never buy another chevy, unless it's a duramax gmc with the up-scale interior.

Aside from that, the only thing "chevy" I'll deal with is a buick 3800 SII. good little motors.

 

[Gravesdiggerxj]

The lifter pump doesn't fail as much as the driver for it tends to overheat. You add a remote mounted driver with a heat sink for cheap and it basically fixes the issue.

 

[mentalbreakdown]

You can do anything with a 6.2 or 6.5 you need to do. Only down fall for them is vibrations tend to crack the webbing of the block, even if the only thing ever hauled by it was a 50lb bag of dog food. If you get one I suggest getting a stud girdle, and a very good damnper on it. On the 6.5 turbo, be vary carful of overboosting and overheating because the heads will crack. These are not preformance engine's they are made to have just enough grunt, but be as fuel efficient as possible for thier day. Now last note, I did see a 6.5 N/A pull out from a hummer that a guy had built a intake, and a pulley set up for a 671 I think roots blower, that thing was awesome.