The Ballad of Big Red

So I’ve had a leak in my auxiliary tank for a month or so now. Ended up that a crack had formed behind the tank on a spot weld for the baffle inside the tank. This was caused by the constant expansion and contraction of the tank. Unfortunately that means the tank needed to be removed, pressure tested and repaired, which meant everything had to come out of the bed.  

Once we had the tank welded back up, I decided that the venting cap wasn’t enough, so we installed a check valve to keep the tank happy. The store was out of 1”-.5” reducers, so we had to make due with a stack. 

TOOLBOX v3.0

While waiting forever for my tank to drain (more than once), my buddy and I decided to build a custom toolbox. 

It is 59” wide, 24” deep, and 14” high on the outside, so it clears my Fifth Wheel by an inch. Inside, it is 57.5” wide, 22.5” deep, and 12.5” high with 7” high partitions. It’s made from 3/4” plywood and anything that is mounted to the outside got machine screws with lock nuts underneath for extra security. It has one coat of undercoating and then 2 coats of gloss black implement paint. All seams have been siliconed and I have weather stripping for the lid. It only cost about $150 in materials and if I wanted an aluminum box of the same size it probably would have been about $500.

Overall, it helped get a lot of stuff out of my cab. 

So Red got a new set of shoes today. I decided to try Mastercraft Courser LTR tires. I really like the tread design. I had the Discount Tire house brand Corsa on there, but I only got 53k out of them. I got them on SimpleTire.com for $117 each. Unfortunately Discount Tire charged me over $160 just to put them on. I see a tire machine and wheel balancer in the near future. 

The other thing I have decided, is that it’s time for injectors. I’m one week from hitting 500k and they are getting loud. So I found this kit on EBay from Pensacola Diesel. It’s $1389.00, but it’s remanned injectors, glow plugs, and a fuel return line kit. You don’t get charged for cores for 30 days, so that helps out the money. 

2007.5-2010 GM LMM Duramax Injector Kit

Now I have decided to go full delete. As old as the motor is, it’s time to pull the the crap off that’s restricting the motor. Basically this is a “Stock” delete kit from Freedom Performance, there is no horsepower gain except for the natural gain of removing the parts. This kit comes with a Tuner (to stop the check engine light from coming on), EGR Delete Plate, EGR Cooler bypass hose and a 4” Stainless Steel Exhaust from the downpipe back. For $950, I can’t complain. 

GBZ Delete Kit w/ 4” Exhaust

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid :

That’s a lot of miles. Is the driver’s seat worn out yet?

In reply to Pete Gossett :

Surprisingly no. 

Pete Gossett said:

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid :

That’s a lot of miles. Is the driver’s seat worn out yet?

The GMT900 trucks seem to do well with wear on the seats from what I have seen.  Much better than the GMT800 trucks anyway (thought I had one with 450k miles and the drivers seat was still in great shape, so maybe it is just luck of the draw and how people get in and out).

So it was finally time to replace my drivers door. When I first bought this truck, the door had a little drop to it, but it would line back up and latch and it wasn’t an issue.

Well over time, the door progressively got worse and it ended up that one of the previous owners noticed the door drop and tried to fix it by putting some washers behind the door side of the hinge. I’m pretty positive that the original owner used the door as a load bearing device to get in and out of the truck. 

Anyways, I just happened to be just outside of Nashville on my way to pick up another trailer when the bottom hinge finally punched through the door. I was able to get the door closed, but this put getting a door to priority one. Luckily for me, there was a couple red doors at a salvage yard in Evansville, IN, only 120 miles out of the way. 

So long story short, the two doors they had were either damaged or on the truck they crushed two days prior. However, they had a 2500HD door that was a manual door and had been stripped and was just a shell. Only $200. 

So I got it home and with help of a friend, we pulled the old door off. 

As you can see the door just fell apart. The backing plate is only spot welded to the door in a few spots.

It was amazing how easy the new door went back on, we hardly had to adjust it.

The next day I finished up the door by removing the decal and adding back on the door trim and Duramax/Allison emblem. I also cleaned up a dent that was covered up by the door trim. 

Now, the door looks great at 20 feet, but you can see the area the decal sat on. I put some elbow grease into some rubbing compound and then some polishing compound and it looks much better, but the paint is pretty rough coming off a work truck. 

I’ve now had the new door on for the last week and it’s like having a new truck.  Unfortunately, the door lock actuator stopped working for some reason and after taking the door back apart, it looks like the motor just died after I unplugged it, unless someone knows something I don’t, this should just be plug and play. 

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid :

I don’t know food the parts cost would be worth the effort, but you could put a meter on the chassis-side of the harness/plug to make sure you have voltage & ground first.