I finally have a Diesel suburban

[KirsL]

I hit the rust stop with a wire brush this morning.



It’s a decent size hole. The rest of the area is solid. So it’s going to get cleaned up and filled with panel bond. It’ll never come apart with that in there. Little body work and it’ll be good enough.


Why not weld in a piece. I don’t want to drop the headliner to weld. It’s dead center of the roof, so hard to reach to weld. I don’t want it to snowball out of control.

The panel bond will be a good solid repair that will outlast the whole truck.

 

[max 02]

Not many 6,5 Subs around here any more. Actually can’t remember when the last time I seen one.

Cool rigs.

 

[KirsL]

They are getting harder to find. But they're out there.

 

[KirsL]

Spot cleaned up and panel bond applied.
Stuff is pretty cool. Dried fairly quick and stupid hard. Had to knock it down with my little air grinder. Before hitting it with a DA.

Ones things for sure. That spot will never separate now.





I'll get some paint on it next week. Hopefully have the windshield put back in by weeks end.

 

[KirsL]

My painter was sick for a few days. But he finally was able to get some filler and primer on the top of the windshield frame.
Came out pretty good.

Now to call the glass guys and have the new windshield put in.

It'll be primer for a week or so. Then I'll sand the whole roof and it'll get painted.

 

[KirsL]

New glass in. 280 bucks, not too bad. On to the next.

 

[KirsL]

Drove the truck home this weekend and used it for our usual weekend errands. All fine and dandy. Drove to work this morning, also fine.

Drive home. My drive is about 25 miles one way. All back roads. Just cruising.

Park and see this while getting my stuff out.


It was foamy at first.

So I started it back up to feel the upper rad hose. Hose stays "soft".

I shine my flashlight at the overflow tank. Which has the rad cap on it in these. And see this at idle.

View attachment 20230410_185123.mp4

I have to do more testing. But I'm not liking where my thought process is heading.

 

[centexk5]

That blows big time. Welp. Time for a duramax.

 

[KirsL]

Definitely. Kinda bummed about it.

Not so much the fixing it. It's probably headgaskets, which aren't horrible to do. But it comes down to time to do it. And I'm finding more little ankle bitter issues then I thought there was.

But, I have to confirm that it actually is headgaskets and then I'll decide what I'm doing.

 

[centexk5]

That’s not a cheap or easy task on a 6.5. @2INSANE can you help out on diagnosis?

 

[KirsL]

Eh, I've done headgaskets before on these. It's not that bad. Worst part is mostly bending over the fenders to actually do it.

I'll see what the coolant looks like in the overflow in the morning.

Then I'll do a pressure test on it tomorrow after work.

Just have to decide at what point I cut my losses and move on. Doing basic maintenance like brakes and such is no biggie and I fully expect that with a used truck.

Blend door issues, AC refrigerate completely empty of gas, holes above windshield, hole under carpet from windshield leak. Those are bigger issues that were hidden fairly well and I honestly missed.

 

[Truckman4life]

That sucks!

 

[KirsL]

Yep, sucks big time.

Couldn't find my coolant pressure tester. So I'll look again in the morning.

So folks have said a weak radiator cap can cause the bubbles. Which I can see being plausible. The PO did replace the radiator kinda recently. So I'm going to rebleed the system on the strange chance it has a stuck air pocket.

 

[max 02]

Went through all that with my sons 01 Duramax… twice. Actually three times. First time replaced head gaskets. Second time resealed the injector cups “Lb7” fun. Third time truck got sold. Would have fixed it again but we didn’t have the time or a great place to store the truck at the time.
6.5s are known for bad heads, my brother in law has had a few back in the day.
Hopefully you get lucky. But the bubbles aren’t a good sign.

 

[KirsL]

Yeah, I'm hopeful but not holding my breath either.

It's a decent truck. Just turning into more of a project then I was planning.

 

[Truckman4life]

Those napa combustion gas testers with the blue fluid work pretty good.

 

[KirsL]

Those napa combustion gas testers with the blue fluid work pretty good.

I'll have to look into that.

Finally found my pressure tester. What's crazy is, I haven't driven the truck since Tuesday morning. I go to pop the radiator cap off, it still had pressure in the system. So I put the tester on, pumped it and I'll leave it over night. See how much it has in the morning.

I will get a new cap though, it doesn't look the greatest.



So, fingers crossed.

 

[Truckman4life]

I vaguely remember doing a powerstroke like that one time that was holding pressure for days. Definitely needs a cap.

 

[2INSANE]

Did the coolant on the ground come from the overflow reservoir?

 

[KirsL]

Did the coolant on the ground come from the overflow reservoir?

Yes, ran down the wheel well. Everything else is dry.