Off Topic - Diesel

If this is the right model then here's the stats from fueleconomy.gov:

Year: 1995

Make: Chevrolet

Model: K2500 Pickup 4WD


8 cylinder, 6.5 Liter, Automatic (4 sp), Diesel, Turbo, (DSL,TRBO) (MPFI), CLKUP
MPG: City - 14, Highway - 18

My friends dad has that exact truck, but it's a dually (don't know if the one your looking at is). It gets more like 14-15mpg in perfect running conditions.
Brandon

You can convert it to run on cooking oil!

If I was going to fork out that much for a truck .... I'd just go all out and get a used Lightning. But I don't know what kind of mileage they get. Diesel is expensive around here (like $2.68 a gallon!) Sometimes I see it cheaper than regular gas, though .... which is at $2.53 right now.

I would advise heavily against it. I work on these type of trucks everyday and they don't make power anywhere close to what they should and the junk stanadyne injection pumps go out continuously. I would try to find a ford truck of comparable year with a 7.3l diesiel if that is what you want. Oh and the mileage on a 6.5 is pitiful. Just my .02.

SeventyMach1 said:

If I was going to fork out that much for a truck .... I'd just go all out and get a used Lightning. But I don't know what kind of mileage they get. Diesel is expensive around here (like $2.68 a gallon!) Sometimes I see it cheaper than regular gas, though .... which is at $2.53 right now.

Click to expand...

What is the tow capacity of the Lightning? I thought they were limited to like 2500lbs. or something.

I had a friend who had a chevy just like that. He sold it and bought a Ford. He said he would never buy one again. We have had several dodge's with the 6cly cummins in them and have been VERY happy with both the milage and the performance. Good luck and happy truck shopping!!

sociopath5.0 said:

What is the tow capacity of the Lightning? I thought they were limited to like 2500lbs. or something.

Click to expand...

You can tow cars with a lightning and an open trailer. Theres a guy in mass who tows his white 03 cobra(pretty heavy car) with his white lightning.. Looks pretty damn cool.

Yeah, I've seen several Lightnings used for towing cars (Fun Ford Weekends )


Some of you know about the HMMWV that I travel with. I haul it around in a goose neck trailer rated at 15,000 lbs. We carry more than that. Our Hummer alone weighs more than 5,000 lbs. We are using an F-350 4x4 Super Duty 4 door dually to pull it. It has a Triton V-10. DO NOT GET ANYTHING LIKE THIS!!! It is a GAS HAWG and doesn't pull nearly as good as a diesel would. If you get the F-series ...... I'd recommend the 7.3 or the new 6.0 diesel.



I was just giving you a heads up.... but overall, to pull, I'd seriously look into a Ford truck with a diesel or one of the Dodge's with the 6 cylinder diesel. Just my .02. However, if I was just pullin' my car on a trailer, I'd look for a Lightning. Something cool to play around with when not pulling ....

hurt said:

You can convert it to run on cooking oil!

Click to expand...

Don't even get me started on this. I'll just advise you to not believe everything that you read/see on TV. It turns into more problems than it's worth.
Brandon

I have heard of the 6.5's getting around 18-20 MPG, but usually 16-17. Lightnings are rated to town 5000 lbs.

This is why we have a talk area.

Don't even get me started on this. I'll just advise you to not believe everything that you read/see on TV. It turns into more problems than it's worth.

Click to expand...

I'm in winnipeg and and after doing the conversions we're paying close to $4.00 USD a gallon. Problems or not, if the prices keep going up I'll be refueling at McDonald's!

#1) You can't just throw dirty grease in your truck.
#2) 99% of restaurants have a contract with a grease recycling company to pick up their used oil, and once it is put in that companies container (behind the restaurant), removing it is theft (even if the people inside the restaurant tell you it's ok).
#3) My best friends dad owns the largest grease recycling company in Oklahoma, and he is the one that has the Chevy dually I mentioned above. We can fill their trucks all day long for free (including all the big rigs that go over the road), but they don't. We ran the Chevy on the stuff (with the required additive for 22k miles. In that time, we had to replace the fuel injectors 3 times, and it eventually led to even bigger issues. With trial and error we were able to discover that to efficiently run on cooking oil without reliability issues, the quality of the product had to be at or very near "off the shelf" purity. Try pricing that stuff per gallon next time your at the grocery store. They get the used cooking oil for free, and have the ability to purify the oil to that condition on site, and it is still (at this point in time) not cost effective to do so. We are light years ahead of the companies actually selling kits to make your own fuel (which will get no where near the purity needed to use reliably), and we still have big issues with reliability. With them, you make the original investment, they get their profit, and their done with it. Trust me, if there was a reliable way to run a diesel engine on the stuff right now, all the trucks at this company would be doing so. If you have to take the jump to find out for yourself, go right ahead. I'm just trying to warn you. On the positive side, the truck does make a lot more power, and it smells like a frenchfrier at WOT

The even bigger issue is #2) above. Right now there are companies in many states that are fighting to get this enforced with up to a $1,000 fine. The more people start trying to suck out of these containers, the stronger that resistance is going to become. That used cooking oil is recycled, and used in cattle, and other livestock feed across the world. Companies in that market are not going to let people come take their "money" out of their containers.
Brandon

Thanks for the info, I saw some crap on TV and read some stuff on-line but hadn't heard about the reliability issue. The only refinement they mentioned was you had to strain it before you could put it in the tank.

Rollin5.0 - what about home heating oil? Every try that? I read a thread about this dude with a deisel VW, and he would run home heating oil for fuel. He put a 250 gallon tank in his garage and stubbed the filler neck outside, then had the heating oil company fill it, never letting them inside to see it was conected to nothing. He claimed that sense its bought in bulk you can save money per gallon versus deisel fuel.

I'm not familiar with "home heating oil". Are you talking Propane? Probably not, just thought I'd see. What exactly is it?
Brandon

home heating oil, exactly the way it sounds lol. Its oil that "oil burners" use to heat water for forced hot water heat, or steam. Its very comon in older homes, unless they converted to gas already.