1998 6.5L K3500 Turbo

[LarsAlaska]

First, I want to thank Mark Hinkle(65dieselgarage.com) here on TheTruckStop.us. He turned me towards this site, though I am not sure of his ‘handle’. So my thanks is delivered raw. All the same, I am grateful.

I have started making upgrades and modifications. I began to make changes after I’ve now owned my 6.5 for a bit over a year due to random staling. I discovered that my PMD was the immediate culprit then YouTube video’s lead me to the aftermarket scene. Now I have deep study ahead, GM Service manuals arriving in the mail and a lot of wrench turning across many weekends this summer. I AM SUPER EXCITED!

My hope is to be involved in this forum to acquire positive direction through any advice the members can present.

Thank you and it’s great to be here,

Lars

 

[ak diesel driver]

Are you in AK?

 

[MrMarty51]

Welcome to the forum Lars.
First item, or next item to do an uprated component on is the harmonic balancer.
If You can not afford a fluiddampener then go for a new GM Original.
The belt drive pulley is also a suspect item.
Either of those gets out of whack and it can bust crankshafts, and or, crack main bearing webs.

 

[Will L.]

Hink is his handle here. By adding the @ before typing a name send that person an alert they are being mentioned directly in a thread, so they get a link to click to make it easy. @Hink is a nice & helpful guy. Anytime someone needs a balancer install tool his has to get mentioned as a great option.

Marty’s comment above is on point regarding the balancer. Along with it is the oil cooler hoses- any sign of seeping oil & replacement is required asap. By their age it’s smart just to do it regardless because if one fails, the engine is toast.
Outside of those two items being insta-death the biggest thing that kills these engines is heat.
200 is fine
210 watch the gauge more than the road
220 pull over and let it idle back to normal.
The military says these are ok up above that range but you’ll never see them get 100,000 miles from a single engine let alone more.

 

[LarsAlaska]

Are you in AK?

Yes. I am in Fairbanks. I purchased my truck from a fellow who acquired it from from Elmendorf. Got it with 49,500 miles. Currently 63k. I’ve picked up a variety of parts from Leroy and KB.

Are you in AK?

 

[LarsAlaska]

Then here is the proper shout-out to @Hink … thanks Mark. I did pick up his Harmonic Balancer install tool also! And yes I have a FLUIDampr in hand. I need to install it. I picked up Leroy’s TimeKeeper gear set also. Just received it, so the work needs to be done!

 

[ak diesel driver]

I'm in the mat-su lmk if you need some help with something

 

[Will L.]

Wow- low miles! Post pics when ya can please.
If there is anyway you could spend time with ak dd, take him up on it! A great guy with impressive knowledge.

 

[LarsAlaska]

I'm in the mat-su lmk if you need some help with something

Thank you. I inevitably will need advice and help. I’ll have to make the spectacular drive down to visit. This is hardly an inhabitation as I always appreciate the road trip on the Parks.

 

[LarsAlaska]

BTW … when I was looking for Mark Hinkle’s handle ( @Hink ) … I wasn’t ( and still am not ) clear how to research someone to get their handle direct. Can someone direct me how to do this? I hope this makes sense. For example, putting a ‘space’ anywhere after the ‘ @ ‘ symbol will deteriorate any chance of a bot reading the directive … for example … ‘ @Any Body On This Site ‘ … I am imagining is not the same as … ‘ @AnyBodyOnThisSite ‘!

 

[LarsAlaska]

There are things that I am not so tech savvy with like spiffy chatting code!

 

[LarsAlaska]

Here is my rig …

 

[LarsAlaska]

Belt Drive Pulley is definitely next on my list! Thank you!!!

 

[ak diesel driver]

Check out the harmonic balancer really close while you're in there. I've replaced mine twice so far