My Big Red Truck - for motorheads only.

Some of you know that when I married Carol in 2009 I sold my Dad's 1986 Chevy 2500HD and bought a 2003 Chevy Duramax 2500HD, 190,000 miles with full crew cab and 8' bed. Full crew cab because Carol's kids, now my kids as well, were 13 and 8 so we needed the big back seat. 8' bed because I wanted to travel with my Bass Violin and a bunch of other stuff. The truck served us well and we planned to use it for a trip to New England in June and our trip out west in the fall.

Two days before we were supposed to leave for New England, I tried to occupy a space with another vehicle with bad results. Not a lot of damage to the truck, but for insurance company purposes a 2003 pickup with 267,000 miles could be totaled by a kid with a BB gun in ten minutes.

The New England trip was cancelled but I still needed a truck for our Western trip. After days and days of shopping the internet I found a 2005 Duramax 2500HD extended cab with 6 speed standard transmission in Ohio. Extended cab is enough now because our cat is the only one traveling with Carol and me. It had 20,000 miles on it, had been taken back by the dealer who sold it new and had done all the maintenance on it because the previous owner had passed away and none of his heirs wanted it. I found it on a Friday afternoon and by noon Saturday we were in Chillicothie, OH writing a check.

I was ecstatic. Carol wasn't happy about the standard transmission and still hasn't driven it but it's just a matter of time. She learned on a standard so some practice and confidence building is all she needs.

Drove it home from OH Saturday afternoon. 23.4 mpg. It still smelled like a new vehicle.

Had I done some research before jumping in, I would have learned that the 2005 LLY engine had serious cooling problems. Heading west to Yellowstone made this a major concern. Fortunately it's old enough that the after market modifications are numerous. Dieselplace.com was a storehouse of info. I bought the add on radiator kit from Joe at coolertowing.com . My radiator shop for 40 years, Doyle's in Salem installed it for me.

The brakes were not supposed to be a problem but I had heard so many horror stories from my RV friends about ruined brakes and even RV's caught fire because of over heating. No one can explain why but everyone tells me that a diesel doesn't provide the same braking power as a gas engine. It sure seems counter-intuitive to me. Shouldn't higher compression result in more braking ?

ANYWAY – the folks on Dieselplace.com raved about EfiLive tuning. It is available from many vendors. I chose Duramaxtuner.com after several other vendors, including the biggie, Banks, told me theirs wouldn't work with a standard transmission. The tunes are made to work with and control both the engine and the automatic transmission. Everybody except Duramax Tuners said when the computer didn't receive feedback from the tranny it would throw all kinds of error codes.

Chris at Duramax Tuners assured me they could write code to eliminate the tranny issues. So I bought from them. 5 tunes are loaded to the truck's computer. 1. Enhanced stock. 2.Heavy tow – 40 additional HP, extra torque, AND using the turbocharger as an engine brake. This is what I bought it for. 3. Light tow - same as heavy tow except 60 additional horsepower. 4. Sport Econ - 80 additional Horsepower.  5. Performance - 100 additional horsepower. The tuner comes with a 5 position switch that mounts in the truck and allows you to change tunes on the fly.

The guys at Duramax Tuners were incredible, both in initial service and in dealing with a skeptical computer dummy with a ton of questions. The first set of tunes they sent me were installed with help from their computer gurus. All 5 ran GREAT. I had asked if I could get 4 tunes cheaper because, “I'm 70 years old with nothing to prove. I don't need 100 more horsepower.” I was told no. Well I'm pretty sure I won't ever show up a Ford at a stop light but 100 extra horses (don't tell Carol) is FUN !

Apparently 2005 was the first year GM went completely computer with the Duramax. And before they got it right, they went through a bunch of different tunes. So although the vendors ask for a lot of info before they write tunes for your truck, including VIN, wheel/tire size, mods, etc. they kinda guess which GM tune your truck has. They guessed wrong on mine so although it ran GREAT, it also lit up the “Parking Brake On”, “ABS system failure” and “Service Brake System” warning lights. And the speedometer was off by 10 – 25 mph depending on the speed. It took two tries but they got it right.

As I've said before, we pulled a 34' Airstream through the Bighorn Mountains from Sheridan to Cody on Rt 14. Never got below 4^th gear going up and didn't touch the brakes coming down except to stop at overlooks. The temp gauge sat exactly on 210 the whole time. Long 6 % grades up and down. By the time we got through Yellowstone and Grand Teton we saw 10% and 12% grades.  I would never own another diesel without it. I've given duramaxtuner.com as the website because that's what I use. If you're a Dodge/Cummings or Ford Powerstroke owner then calibratedpower.com is where you want to go. They even do farm tractors !

If I had researched before jumping in, I would have found that the clutch could also be a weak point on the 2005 LLY. Not that there is a very large sample to go by. Standards are very rare. I guess nobody has the need to be a manly truck driver anymore. Or something. Anyway I probably wouldn't have been concerned. I mean, come on. It had 20,000 miles on it. I don't know if the previous owner rode the clutch all the time or he taught half a dozen grandchildren to drive stick. But BEFORE the Bighorns and Yellowstone the clutch started slipping. Not a lot. Only in 6^th when I pushed it on the only two hills between Bismarck, ND and Wall, SD. AGAIN Dieselplace.com came through with advice. Mainly, “DO NOT REPLACE WITH A STOCK GM CLUTCH.” I'd kinda figured that out on my own.

I purchased a South Bend CB/Kevlar Clutch with a solid flywheel. Rated to 425 RWHP and 800 ft.lbs. torque from Accelerated Diesel Service and had it installed by Quality Transmission. Both are in Rapid City, SD. Both exceeded expectations in all respects. If you need service in the Rapid City area, I would recommend either for their knowledge, competence and honesty. Accelerated could have sold me a double disk clutch for an extra $400 or so and I would have ignorantly happy. But when I told him what tunes I had, he told me that it would be overkill and cut his sale by $400.

So now I have a 2005 LLY with amazing cooling, a tuned engine with a switch in the truck that allows me to pick from 5 different tunes on the fly and a bullet proof clutch to go with my bullet proof transmission that I expect to be good for a couple of hundred thousand miles of towing at least. I won't live long enough to find out but I am comfortable towing it.

The original price seemed like a very good deal. The extra expenses have made it “not quite so good” a deal. But I still LOVE MY BIG RED TRUCK.