There’s a lot of things you need to look at on that motor before committing to buying it. Most of them were abused with lack of oil changes and basic maintenance (injectors, glow plugs, etc). Good news is, if the block is the original 95 block, that’s one of the better castings. Late 96-97 the blocks were cast with different metal combinations and ultimately suffered failures.
There’s a comprehensive list of things to look at.
Here’s a start for a lot of good info.
www.dieselplace.com
So many have been asking about “should I buy this truck or not?” The answer is, we don’t know. We’ve never seen it. We’ve never rode in it. We don’t know what you wanna do with it. Here are a few Frequently Asked Questions when it comes to purchasing a 6.5L Diesel: What Rear End Gears? Check...
www.dieselplace.com
If you do decide to purchase it, plan on the following as a must do.
Injectors - get Bosch or rebuilt bosch. I’d go to quadstar tuning for those.
Glow plugs - oem delco or bosch duraterm
oil cooler lines - either braided or traditional rubber - just need to have them threaded into the block and not the flimsy GM clip. Lunrication specialists sells good kits
Harmonic balancer and crank pulley. Lots of
Folks like to spend hundreds on a fluid damper-I stay good ol delco here. It’s reasonably priced and will do you well. Now, if you get into high performance and high rpm, yes, go fluid damper.
Cdr valve - it’s on the passenger valve cover and usually hasn’t been changed. Yes it is important. It’s a whole 25-40 bucks and 5 minutes or less to replace.
Pull and clean your radiator and the area between the ac condenser and radiator. Over half of the cooling issues can be solved there.
That should get you a good start. Read through the diagnostics checks above, especially with the blowby and, fuel t valve, the turbo wheel, and the radiator hose.
Based on lots of reviews of others, Stay away from ss diesel. Do some forum searching and you’ll see why.