6.5 diesel [Expired Topic]

[gmcjohnny]

hey all right now i own a 1986 gmc 1500 heavy half pick up an wife has an exploder i'm in the market for a 2500 burb i,m hearing bad things about the 6.5 diesel that it eats up injector pumps is this a good motor or is this the weak link any input would be great thanks johnny

[Six-Pack]

Hey Johnny... I am not an expert on the matter, but am in the market, as well. Here is the link to one page that I found informative on this particular issue...

http://www.dieselsuburbans.com/DieselSuburbanFacts.htm

Hope it helps.

[Steve]

Hey Johnny, welcome to the site.

I've heard a bit about this, but I have never owned a diesel suburban so I'm not 100% in the loop on it. I've always kept good filters and proper care and maintenance and thought that should be enough to give long injector pump life.

[Philip]

I've had a 1999 GMC K2500 with the turbo diesel for nearly a year now. The previous owner warned me about the injection pump controller problems. However, he also said that at least some of the problems were due to poor placement of the controller: right on top of the water pump which gets pretty hot. He moved the pump to the firewall.

I thought he was pretty clever and had cured the problem until symptoms that appeared to be injection pump controller failure occurred first during a recent PA - FL trip. Then it happened again several times since over the past month. The symptom is that the engine just stops entirely, but will re-start almost right away after letting it cool off for a minute so.

So one of the times it happened last weekend, I went ahead and replaced the controller with a new one that the previous owner had left for me in the glove compartment. However, the symtoms recurred almost immediately after installing the new one, so that obviously was not the real problem this time.

So, this is probably a much longer answer than you were looking for, and if anyone has read this far, maybe they can suggest a next step for diagnosing my diesel engine problem. My best guess is that the relocation of the injector controller has indeed fixed the controller overheating problem and that the remaining problem is due to either fuel quality, filter, or lift pump problems, or maybe (but hopefully not) a problem with the injector pump itself.

I'll let you know what I find (if anyone is interested).

Philip

[Six-Pack]

Philip ~

Hey there! I have no personal knowledge of all this stuff... but it was my understanding, from the reading I did, that most of the problems were with the injector pump, itself, not the controller you mentioned. BUT... I was also under the understanding that this problem existed mainly in the '94- early '97 models, not the '98-'99, so I would think you should be okay in that area. But I only know what I've read, so... who knows?

I suggest clicking on the link I provided up above, in a previous post, the guy who wrote that page seems to know his stuff. He did mention another problem that sometimes acts like the injector pump, but much easier and cheaper to fix, I just don't recall what that was... so take a peep and see what he has to say.

Hope this helps.

Dmom of Dsixpack