Dimebag's New Job - 2000 K3500 CCLB 6.5L TD

Got a chance to grab a couple of shots of my new-to-me rig. Its a stock LS except that I've added the tow mirrors and I swapped out the front row captains chairs with a 60/40 bench. I've got for 4 kids so that makes 6 of us and I needed the extra seat for all the bums.

It's at 316000 km (196,000 miles). It needs some help (hence my wife will accuse me of letting it become my 'second job') but she wants to go camping too, so this acquisition is part of the solution

That'll make a badass camping rig

Looks like a solid truck. What are your plans for it?

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For now I'm primarily making sure it's safe and reliable. If an upgrade should happen in that effort, well.... that's just the cost of doing business.

For example, the exhaust system is a pretty miserable and the fix is being driven by a reoccurring leak at the left bank manifold-to-downpipe connection. There's rusted broken-off studs and spot welds barely holding on. So I bought a new pair of exhaust manifolds and did a bunch of reading about the turbo and exhaust system, and next thing I knew I had a 4inch turbo-back cat-delete in the back of my car...




but I'm still waiting on a new crossover pipe, some hardware and seals, and some time to get it done.

Once I get the exhaust on I'll be looking at a Heath Diesel Max E Tork & Turbo-Master combo - that'll let me get rid of the chronic belt driven vacuum pump under the hood that is used for OEM control of the turbo waste gate.


I should also do a complete front-end replacement sooner than later - I don't know if its ever been done, and every once in a while a pretty bad shake develops in the front end.



I'm also gathering pieces for a new stereo system, that'll be a fall winter project.

The New Job was suffering from intermittent heater blower fan syndrome so I had a look at it. Its strange how some are affected and others never experience this problem within the same family of vehicles.

At first I guessed it was the fan speed resistor pack in the fan housing, so I changed it - but didn't solve the problem. So then I looked at the connector to the heater control panel:







Clearly not an unknown problem, when I went to the wrecker to find replacements every control panel was gone from every possible donor, but not one had a burnt vehicle-side connector... so I really wonder why some suffer this fate and others don't. My fan doesn't seem to blow very hard, and I've read others here say that their vent airflow improves a lot after changing the fan/motor - so maybe if the motor starts to wear out and the electrical load increases to turn it eventually leads to the plug meltdown at the switch. Just a theory - I'll be looking to change my blower motor soon - maybe I'll do a before-and-after current draw comparison.

Anyways, got both sides of the burnt connector replaced and now the AC can actually cool us down!

yay.

put some new shoes on the other day. i like. 2010 17's - fit great!

also picked up a Kargo Master construction rack i found on CL to get my aluminum fishing boat up to the lake.

Nice truck man. Those wheels fit great.

Very nice truck, clean too. Good call getting the 4" exhaust.

Have you considered getting a better turbo?

Check out dieselplace.com loads of info there about these 6.5 trucks

Nice truck. I too would wait and spend my money on a different turbo. I have the ATT turbo and really like it. Some people run a Holset turbo, some Holset knockoffs from China. I have a lot of Heath stuff on my truck, but over the past 5 years or so he has gotten pretty expensive on his prices on stuff. I never ran his turbo master though. Kennedy diesel has done quite a bit with 6.5's also. I kept the vacuum system and ran a Kennedy boost fooler. But nothing has compared to the ATT and I did have Heath refresh my ECM for this turbo. I had the Maxetork ECM from him and he only charged me $50 to re flash for the ATT. Don't know if you already ordered your crossover pipe yet for the exhaust, but I got mine from Summit Racing and it's made by Flowmaster. It was crossover and downpipes for a little over $100 at that time. Feed the beast mod and a Walbro lift pump made a difference in power also. A few tweaks and mods to these engines and they run pretty well power wise and get 15-18 MPG vs. 9 with a 454.

Before replacing the blower motor I would put a 12v jumper to it and see if it spins up to normal speed without all the controllers