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2000 GMT400 CREW CAB SFA SWAP-The Warden: Fuel leak fixed and awaiting surgery…

The ultimate goal for this truck is tow duty/family camping trips/small offroad adventures.
Replacing the glow plugs is a good place to start. Especially if you don't know how old they are.

The block heater is easy to check. Just put your hand on the coolant crossover. It should be warm.

A stock compression 6.5 should have no problem starting at 30 degrees. Hell my low compression 6.5 would start in the 20s unplugged. It wasn't happy doing it but I tested it just to be sure that it could.
 
Thanks for the info @KirsL

I started with the glow plugs, as in I looked at them. Found 2 broken and 1 unplugged. I plugged the one good one back in to make 6 working plugs and it fired up fairly quickly. So off to the parts store in the morning for 2 glow plugs and fix the block heater tomorrow while I’m in a garage swapping my springs. FYI these glow plugs were new last winter. I guess I should regularly check them out say with every oil change maybe. You live and learn.

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I'm convinced glow plugs is a once a year thing.

But for reference. When I put Kennedy quick heats in ( 6.2 with factory controller) my jimmy would fire easily without being plugged in down to around 0. It cranked probably 4 seconds more than normal.
 
Kennedy quick heats or AC Delco 60gs are the only ones to run. They last a long time and the don't swell up if left on for too long.

I'll throw in a vote for Bosch Duraterms as well as the 60G plugs.

Greg, what plugs were you running? 60G and Duraterm plugs warm more slowly than the old 9G or Kennedy plugs. But they last a long time and aren't so easy to burn out. Running a quick-heating plug with your stock long-pulse controller may be ruining the plugs prematurely. :thinking:
 
Kennedy quick heats or AC Delco 60gs are the only ones to run. They last a long time and the don't swell up if left on for too long.

I'll throw in a vote for Bosch Duraterms as well as the 60G plugs.

Greg, what plugs were you running? 60G and Duraterm plugs warm more slowly than the old 9G or Kennedy plugs. But they last a long time and aren't so easy to burn out. Running a quick-heating plug with your stock long-pulse controller may be ruining the plugs prematurely. :thinking:
I thought I had bought Bosch from EBay, but very well could have been lied to. Today I am picking up 8 60G’s from O’Rielly’s so I know they are what they say they are, and so they have some kind of warranty. I’m done being cheap with Fleabay on stuff that you shouldn’t go cheap on. I know better than that.
 
This morning I cycled the glow plugs twice then hit it. Stumbled for a few seconds then smoothed out. I’d say once these cheap plugs are gone it should be dead on for reliability. The wind chill is down to 1* so it’s definitely cold.

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So I finally have some time to post how my day went.

Started about 11am this morning

Pulled the truck in shop and started going to town on getting the axle out.

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Got the old springs out and set them next to the new ones. At first I was worried about how much arch the new ones had. But I knew the only thing to do was put them in.

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Once the springs were in it was pretty straight forward. Once the weight was on the springs I new these would be perfect.

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And the maiden voyage to the grocery store. Overall I am pretty happy with these springs. A lot more suspension travel and no more harsh jarring hits. If it diesel truck snow too much I’ll get a flex pic tomorrow hahaha.

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@GWeakland620 back on the glow pugs

When I was servicing the old 6.2/6.5 and 6.9/7.3 trucks, the factory set was always the best. On each of these we started replacing the pugs late in the fall so they’d be new for winter.
We experimented with changing the controllers after we got to one a years, which seemed to help (but at a cost)
 
Couple technical questions - why bother pulling the axle out instead of just swapping springs in place? And did you really hang the calipers from their rubber hoses? :zombie19:


Nice results, though. :waytogo:
 

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