Thanks for the moral support.
It's a great running truck. Chevy/GMC hasn't made a diesel Suburban since 1999 and stopped making the heavy duty 3/4 ton with the last generation that ended a couple years ago. So you can't really tow a car trailer with them any more.
We are keeping it forever so I have no issue putting money into it to keep it going. I just drove it 100 miles this morning to buy some old R12 Freon for one of my old cars. Great oil pressure, no non-diesel suspicious noises, no issues (knock on wood).
I cruised through the local Chevy truck dealer yesterday just for giggles. All the truck salesmen were looking and pointing at the Suburban as I idled by the windows. Afterwards I cruised by the line of new Suburbans they had there - all in varying shades of ugly, dark, metallic mud or charcoal colored. (Doesn't anybody make an actual pleasant paint color any more? The lowest sticker price I saw was $76,000 - exactly double what I paid for mine 22 years ago.
When we had the headgaskets done three and half years ago (I had a local diesel truck mechanic do it at the time, who specialized in 6.5s), he was astonished on how spotless the inside of the engine was when he pulled the valve covers. This was due to the constant oil changes.
I have a feeling we may not have caught the initial headgasket failure in time 15,000 miles ago - it most likely "steam cleaned" that cylinder of oil while it was running and hurt the rings and maybe a bearing or two. The 6.5s were notorious for the rearmost cylinders running hot and blowing the headgaskets, which is exactly what happened to this engine: cylinder #7 blew out the metal ring in the headgasket. And right where they blow out is the drain port for the engine oil from the cylinder head into the block. It was a weak point in the engine design that has been remedied in the Optimizer blocks.
It's a great running truck. Chevy/GMC hasn't made a diesel Suburban since 1999 and stopped making the heavy duty 3/4 ton with the last generation that ended a couple years ago. So you can't really tow a car trailer with them any more.
We are keeping it forever so I have no issue putting money into it to keep it going. I just drove it 100 miles this morning to buy some old R12 Freon for one of my old cars. Great oil pressure, no non-diesel suspicious noises, no issues (knock on wood).
I cruised through the local Chevy truck dealer yesterday just for giggles. All the truck salesmen were looking and pointing at the Suburban as I idled by the windows. Afterwards I cruised by the line of new Suburbans they had there - all in varying shades of ugly, dark, metallic mud or charcoal colored. (Doesn't anybody make an actual pleasant paint color any more? The lowest sticker price I saw was $76,000 - exactly double what I paid for mine 22 years ago.
When we had the headgaskets done three and half years ago (I had a local diesel truck mechanic do it at the time, who specialized in 6.5s), he was astonished on how spotless the inside of the engine was when he pulled the valve covers. This was due to the constant oil changes.
I have a feeling we may not have caught the initial headgasket failure in time 15,000 miles ago - it most likely "steam cleaned" that cylinder of oil while it was running and hurt the rings and maybe a bearing or two. The 6.5s were notorious for the rearmost cylinders running hot and blowing the headgaskets, which is exactly what happened to this engine: cylinder #7 blew out the metal ring in the headgasket. And right where they blow out is the drain port for the engine oil from the cylinder head into the block. It was a weak point in the engine design that has been remedied in the Optimizer blocks.
