Just introducing myself

[Big Al]

Hi everyone , before I start asking all those stupid newbie questions I thought I would intro myself and tell you all how I got here.
It started about a month ago when my yougest brother started looking on ebay to purchase a ....HUMMER. After a couple of failed attempts to purchase a Hummer he finnally managed to "score" a "clean" 95 H1 Diesel from a "dealer in Arizona. We flew down to pay for and pick up the truck and we thought to drive the truck back to Alberta,Canada where we both live. We packed a small set of tools and lots of room on the credit cards fully expecting somekind of breakdown. After spending the night in Phoenix waiting for the paperwork to clear we did a once over on the truck and grabbed some supplies for the truck did some minor repairs to the truck and we were off. We made it as far as an hour East of a town called Kingman AZ (on the way to Vegas) about a 3 hr drive from our departure point where we had our first breakdown a water pump luckily we saw the temp rise and shut it down immediatly to figure out what was happenning. We managed to get a tow to Kingman $250 US where we spent the night. The repair was more than we were prepared for so we had to get a local shop to do the work $700 US. After paying for that repair we were on the road again and drove exactly 37 miles before breaking down again. We contacted the dealer we bought it from and he was VERY apologetic and told us he would tow the truck to Vegas and have it looked at telling us he would make it right BLAH BLAH BLAH. Well when we arrived in Vegas at Towbin Hummer the tow truck driver unloaded the truck and gave us the bill we told him that the dealer was taking care of the bill ....surprise !!! no he wasn't $375 US. It turned out the "dealer" turned out to be a liar and no help whatsoever. I agree we bought a used truck and the whole buyer beware thing but the dealer told us repeatedly that he would "make things right" so we were stranded not knowing quite what to do we had to leave the truck at Towbin Hummer (who treated us well enough) and flew back to the land of the beaver . We never were able to reach the dealer again after leaving voicemails he never returned our calls and never did "make things right". After waiting for 3 or 4 days to give him a chance we ended up having the truck flatdecked back home by a friend of my brothers. My brother tore into the truck to find that it had thrown a rod, closer inspection revealed that the motor had been torn into previously, hard to believe with a truck that only had 67000 miles on it rollback mabey??? It's been almost a month since this happend and we still havent heard from the dealer so far his only recourse has been to slam the guy on the feedback section on Ebay.

Well that's our story (the short version of it) (you wouldn't believe me if I told you the rest) I've got a couple of questions regarding the removeall of the motor (It looks like it comes out from the bottom?) but any adive you can offer would be appreciated.

Thanks
Big Al

[JnStitz]

Originally posted by Big Al:
Hi everyone , before I start asking all those stupid newbie questions I thought I would intro myself and tell you all how I got here.
It started about a month ago when my yougest brother started looking on ebay to purchase a ....HUMMER. After a couple of failed attempts to purchase a Hummer he finnally managed to "score" a "clean" 95 H1 Diesel from a "dealer in Arizona. We flew down to pay for and pick up the truck and we thought to drive the truck back to Alberta,Canada where we both live. We packed a small set of tools and lots of room on the credit cards fully expecting somekind of breakdown. After spending the night in Phoenix waiting for the paperwork to clear we did a once over on the truck and grabbed some supplies for the truck did some minor repairs to the truck and we were off. We made it as far as an hour East of a town called Kingman AZ (on the way to Vegas) about a 3 hr drive from our departure point where we had our first breakdown a water pump luckily we saw the temp rise and shut it down immediatly to figure out what was happenning. We managed to get a tow to Kingman $250 US where we spent the night. The repair was more than we were prepared for so we had to get a local shop to do the work $700 US. After paying for that repair we were on the road again and drove exactly 37 miles before breaking down again. We contacted the dealer we bought it from and he was VERY apologetic and told us he would tow the truck to Vegas and have it looked at telling us he would make it right BLAH BLAH BLAH. Well when we arrived in Vegas at Towbin Hummer the tow truck driver unloaded the truck and gave us the bill we told him that the dealer was taking care of the bill ....surprise !!! no he wasn't $375 US. It turned out the "dealer" turned out to be a liar and no help whatsoever. I agree we bought a used truck and the whole buyer beware thing but the dealer told us repeatedly that he would "make things right" so we were stranded not knowing quite what to do we had to leave the truck at Towbin Hummer (who treated us well enough) and flew back to the land of the beaver . We never were able to reach the dealer again after leaving voicemails he never reurned our calls and never did "make things right". After waiting for 3 or 4 days to give him a chance we ended up having the truck flatdecked back home by a friend of my brothers. He tore into the truck to find that it had thrown a rod, closer inspection revealed that the motor had been torn into previously, had to believe with a truck that only had 67000 mile on it rollback mabey??? It's been almost a month since this happend and we still havent heard from the dealer so far his only recourse has been to slam the guy on the feedback section on Ebay.

Well that's our story (the short version of it) (you wouldn't believe me if I told you the rest) I've got a couple of questions regarding the removeall of the motor (It looks like it comes out from the bottom?) but any adive you can offer would be appreciated.

Thanks
Big Al

It comes out from the top just like any other motor. Basicly, take apart the interior, take apart everything below, then remove the hood and start taking things out until you find a engine rather hidden back in there. I had the same problem with a thrown rod, you may have trouble getting the engine free because of the flywheel boots may not all be accessable if you cant turn the motor over at all.

Hopefully that helps a bit...

-Jon

[Big Al]

Thanks, turning the motor over won't be a problem as it did run when he started into it plus we have access to a flywheel turning tool. Iam a little surprised about talking the motor out that way though. Also have you heard of one of these motors being supercharged ? This one has a whipple supercharger on it, the turbo is gone in someones spare parts bin. How common is this ?

[JnStitz]

Originally posted by Big Al:
Thanks, turning the motor over won't be a problem as it did run when he started into it plus we have access to a flywheel turning tool. Iam a little surprised about talking the motor out that way though. Also have you heard of one of these motors being supercharged ? This one has a whipple supercharger on it, the turbo is gone in someones spare parts bin. How common is this ?

Its a gas truck right?

[Big Al]

Nope it's got the 6.5 diesel in it I know it sounds a little strange but it is a diesel.

[Beastmaster]

Al,

Sorry to hear what's been happening to you. Starting off, which dealer sold this to you? I'd love to warn others so that they don't buy from them.

Secondly, having a Whipple Supercharger on a 6.5 NA engine has happened. It's not very common, but it does exist.

My recommendation in regards to motor removal would be to purchase a service manual for the truck. They come on CD's, and can be purchased from a variety of places. The cheapest I've found is http://www.bluehummer.com.
The motor comes out from the top/front. You do need to tear apart parts of the interior to access necessary stuff.

As for what may have happened - your Whippled supercharged engine produces a good chunk of power, but you also have to watch something called the Exhaust Gas Temp. If you don't watch the EGT, you will crack the block. When that happens, you can throw a connecting rod and have all sorts of other problems. Water pump issues can occur as well.

The reason for this is due to the fact that non-turbo 6.5L diesels have a higher compression ratio, which means that monitoring engine vitals become critial.

As for tearing into the engine - that's going to be normal. Every 10k miles, the oil for the Whipple needs to be changed. You'll also have to monitor and check for head gasket leaks and watch your injector pump to ensure that it's not delivering too much fuel. Every once in a while, you'll also have to have your engine checked for piston cracks.

This is mainly due to having the supercharger. It gives you good performance, but it does have it's own support headaches.

Hope this helps,
Steve

[Big Al]

I do appreciate your help, I'll be ordering a CD for my bro today. As for the dealer he's right in your neck of the woods(or lack of) I think his shop was called D&D motorsports out of Gilbert AZ. What would you recommend with regards to keeping the setup or switching to the turbo,I was assuming that this year of truck originally had a turbo on it as there is a boost guage in the dash.

[Beastmaster]

If the person who originally did the Whipple did it right, the unit will have a boost gauge. It also should have a pyrometer that shows the EGT. 1200 degrees F is the max - anything more, you start blowing parts off of the engine by threatening to melt the piston heads.

For boost, you'll only need about 5-7lbs at the most. 5 is pretty much the norm at max RPM, and you want about 1.5lbs at idle. Just remember the formula of higher boost, lower compression....

Oh, stock TD's never had a boost gauge...so it's an add on.

As for keeping the setup, I would. A Whippled 6.5L truck will have better performance and great gas mileage - people have reported at least 15mpg out of their Whippled diesels....more than I can say for the Turbo's.

What I would do is this:
Get yourself a 6.5L Turbo short block. They have lower compression pistons, oil cooled heads, and a strengthened casting block (as long as it's a newer casted engine made from 2002 and up).

Then start doing parts transfers. Move the Whipple and other stuff over. Remount the engine.

The killer thing about a Whippled 6.5 is that it's going to start to produce max torque as low as 1200 RPM (TD's do their max torque at 1700), and the torque/horsepower curve doesn't cross paths until later on in the RPM range, making it a very good engine with mod.

The other word of warning is the head gasket. 95 6.5's had crappy head gaskets, and it wasn't until recently that the FelPro gaskets were reinforced in such a way that you can run with boosts.

Hope this helps!
Steve

[Big Al]

Hummer pro ? Hummer God is more like it ! You sound extremely knowledgeable. Were/are you a tech ? Your right about the pyrometer. Couple other things about the truck make us a little uneasy, some patched one of the fuel lines with a check valve and talking to a buddy of mine who is diesel mechanic has said this changes the timing and has an impact on how the engine will run. The previous owner must've had an auxiliary fuel tank and removed it prior to selling it,he/ they didn't plug the hole/s that were left from the mod and the first time we filled it up we left some fuel on the ground at the station. He is still mostly concerned with the engine repairs but will address this problem soon.

[Beastmaster]

No. I'm not a tech, although I could make a decent living as one. I'm just a shadetree mechanic with a pretty decent sized home garage to diag Hummers and BMW's. I've modded cars and trucks in my off time for over 16 years now.

I'm an engineer by trade....which basically means that I can RTFM really well. I've just spent a lot of time around cars and trucks, thanks to my dad....he was a high school shop teacher.

A check valve will be generally found in the fuel line. It's generally near the fuel tank.

As for the auxiliary fuel tank - where was the filler for that? If you have two filler caps (one in front of the right rear wheel and one behind the right rear wheel), then your truck originally came with two tanks. 1995 was one of those transition years in which some came with 2 tanks, some didn't. It became standard in 1996.

The engine is a good one, especially if you use a block that was made from 2001-2 onward. Those have all the bugs worked out, are dependable, have lots of mods, and work quite well.

Add a Whipple with light boost, and you've got a really decent engine that can peform very nicely.

Now - for replacement, you can get a pretty decent used engine for cheap. eBay has one (6.5L Naturally Aspirated) for $1500 (Item 8008032092). No bids. It came out of a Chevy/GMC Van, which is the exact same engine as what is in the Hummers. Drop and go!

A reman long block 6.5 for Hummers/GMC/Chevy Vans with 1 year/unlimited miles warranty can be had for about $3k. You do need to ship (and they generally pick it up as part of the cost) the dead engine back. Item 8007897211 on eBay. This is good since it's got the upgraded pistons/oil cooling/lower compression/etc.

HTH,
Steve

[Big Al]

About the aux fuel tank, we were told that the previous owner mounted a aux tank ontop of a custom build combination headache rack/tonnuea cover I'm guessing it looked similar to some of the aux tanks I've seen elsewhere on this site.My bro has decided that a short block (no heads) is the direction he is gonna go but we were not aware of the differences between the different years. I'll pass that along.
As for the fuel line, it's my mechanic buddies opinion that the original owner has a fuel leak at the line and wasn't prepared to do a proper repair (replacing the entire line)so he removed the guts from a check valve and used the valve to replace the section of damaged line. My buddy told us that any change to the length or diameter of a diesel fuel line from the injector pump to the injector can negativly impact the performance of a diesel engine. By the way he works on Isuzu diesel engines as well as Lombardini and just about any other diesel engine used in the oilfield. As you know the duramax is from Isuzu so he familiar with it.

[ssgharkness020147]

I second what Steve has said. But, As far as the new engine is concerned I would take a different route. I would have an engine built up. If your are going to use the blower you would really be better off building up an engine to withstand the stress of the blower. A stock 6.5 is going to struggle with that and will have to be modified if you want to get the most miles out of it. If you're gonna do it, go all out. I would:

Get an AMG manufactured block.
Have the number 7-8 cylinders "sleaved" (this prevents cracks, which this block is known for in those cylinders). And have the block honed to the best tolerences possible.
Get 18:1 pistons.

Have the pistons, cylinder heads, valves, exhuast manifolds, and intake manifold ceramic coated. This will help displace the added temp of the super charger.

See if there is a performance cam that would compliment your super charger.

Have the injector pump you have rebuilt.

Change out the chain driven timing to gear driven timing, with the power of a super charger the chain is more likely to break. Gear driven timing will eliminate that. Really, if you are going to run a blower you need gear driven timing.

And well your at it, why not throw in some new high perf. injectors.

There is a company called Peninsular Diesel they make some very nice 6.5's. I would call them up and see if they could help you out. There is also Diesel Depot (who's number I dont have), he is another 6.5 builder. I would stay away from him, from what I hear on the "other" site alot of people who buy from him end up needing to send the engine back, after its been installed of course. Good luck and let us know what you decide doing.

[HUMMERDOGG]

To follow up with what Carey stated. Dennis Sweeney with GEPP Diesel out of Nevada might also be someone worth calling... I spent the better part of an hour on the phone with him two weeks ago going over what could be done to improve the performance of a 6.5 TD.

http://www.geppdiesel.com
775-970-5072

[Ground hawg]

this is another good place to get you engine from if you havn't already got it.
http://www.gm-diesel-engines.com/index.html for a long block turbo on top, 50K unlimited year warenty $4,500.00