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Yearly clay bar and wax. Went with Cerakote ceramic sealer this time. Time will tell if it’s any good.

Picked up the new truck today. I still have no idea when the 3500 LTZ I originally was going to buy will show up, and neither does my dealer. Salesman was able to dealer trade from my area (Buffalo, NY area) to a dealer in Delaware. HUGE SHOUT OUT TO UPSTATE CHEVROLET and Al Ficarella for pulling this off. So much appreciated! Now maybe I can sleep....

Now we are in my wheelhouse Any refinery that can run sour crude can and does process sweet. Just can't do it as efficiently. Fact, no refinery in the USA processes ONLY sour crude. They are run on a blend and that the split has more to do with the price of the various feed streams or equipment utilization numbers than the processing equipment itself. When you run sweet in a sour plant there are certain parts of the plant that no long have a function OR are not fully utilized. Sulphur content is what determines the feed being called sour or sweet. So when WTI is sold to Europe it isn't due to a lack of processing ability. It's due to 'limiting profit' running it here. Sour crudes are not just the middle east. Venezuela, Canada, Mexico are also sour. We import all three. Chevron has a very large presents in Venezuela. Chevron's refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and several others along the Gulf Coast, Valero and Marathon Oil are sour plants as are many in the Midwest that use Canada crudes. This all is tied more to profit than to ability. A new refinery built specifically for WTI just makes more money but supply is limited in the big picture. Fact is we only have one refinery in the USA that processes only sweet. Toledo Ohio and it isn't a big one. 180K bpd. There is a second planed for Brownsville to run sweet shale crudes but....also small 160K bpd. Fact, it is cheaper to build and run a sweet plant and there are more high value products in sweet crudes. There is just a limited supply on the planet. Sour plants proliferate in the USA due to past practice when OPEC was flooding the market and it was cheap enough to warrant such a move and US production of sweet was small. There are refineries in the USA that have units that date back to the 1920's. I worked a Getty light gas plant that changed boiler and thermal cracker fuel type up to four times a day based on cost. Ran our butts ragged during the 70's embargo. Nothing in a refinery is not driven by extracting that last penny a barrel. It has nothing to do with the needs of a nation or it's people.

Godzilla eats cams but I guess you missed that part. L8Ts that come in at work have been reliable. We've only replaced one engine in a customer truck in the 6, going on 7 years its been out. Maybe 2 or 3 came in for oil consumption monitoring.

new member here - just traded my 2018 Colorado long bed LT/4WD V6, lifted 2" w/ ZR2 wheels for it's big brother - 2026 2500HD LT / 4x4 / trail boss 6.6L in the same sterling gray color. I tow a 5-6Klb car trailer and moved to CO last year from CA and now have a farm property, so plenty of room and more hauling duties as well plus the mountains / elevation around here really kills the already underpowered V6 in the Colorado. I don't drive a lot, so the Duramax wasn't really necessary, and gas around here is $1 cheaper than diesel as well. This truck has well more than double the towing capacity I need anyway - I was just looking for some margin and to cover for the mountains which go up to 10K feet in some places.

I'm pretty sure everything GM does is for profit. Doesn't change the fact that somehow in 2026, so many people can devote so much mental bandwith to something as simple as engine oil. Go blindly pick any decent synthetic. Dexos or otherwise, change every 5k,and convince me there's a real world difference.

Yup. My last real work day is 12/18, and I’m officially retiring 12/31. We are hitting the road for a few weeks heading South to Joshua Tree, Death Valley, Mojave Desert, and other SW destinations in mid February. We hope it will be a good year for the bloom in Death Valley.

1974 IH D200 4x4 345 V8 4v factory dual exhaust dual fuel tanks original 61500 miles. Very little rust.

I just heard from him. Today was PT day. Sore, some pain. His PT person is riding him hard and putting him up wet. bet he'll check in later today or tomorrow

I pulled the trigger and got a DiabLew custom tune for my truck. I have never done this to a vehicle before and was a little intimidated at first, but after doing extensive research on the internet (watching videos, browsing these forums, etc.) I felt it was the best solution for me. My commute threw me into more stop-and-go traffic than normal, and while there was nothing inherently wrong with my truck mechanically, the AFM and transmission was making the drive pretty exhausting. I am pleasently surprised with the results. It didn't drastically transform the driving experience or anything or "awaken the beast," but it did smooth everything out. Everything feels more stable, which is a great feeling. I don't have to deal with the constant clunking I had previously when stopping and going. I also feel I can confidently overtake someone on the highway where as before I really had to think about it. I am not done with the process yet as I still need to conduct a WOT log, but wanted to share my current experience with it. I never had any issues with AFM, but having V8 all the time was an extra bonus with the tune and I will admit I like not having the rumble/vibration of V4 mode. I am also hoping this (combined with my cooler trans thermostat) will squeeze some additional life out of my 6L80 as I am still on the original one with 145,000 miles.

Six hours since hip surgery and I’m feeling great with meds. I’m hoping to do a flying dropkick. Update did it moments ago.

My first vehicles had owners manuals that told us how to set valves and pinion gears. Gave us torque specs and clearance targets. Today they tell us not to drink the battery acid and don't read this book while driving. We are miles ahead knowing what it 'used to be' if we only apply it, right? People changed. Rules changed, Regulations changed. But the machine still needs what it needs. Motor builds heat when actually working. Heat thins oil. Needs thicker oil in response. In self-defense. Common sense....

EDIT: Linking an earlier version of the recall here that's from this very thread: https://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=182274&key=25bd8ff5fd2a227a83b28b5554b53c6d They aren't using the Picoscope test to analyze for P0016 nor is it to analyze cam/crank correlation. If one of these recalled 6.2s comes in with P0016 set, it gets an engine, full stop. This test is done with a special tool they sent to dealers. The tool is a harness with a knock sensor on it. The knock sensor gets installed to an open M8 threaded boss on the left side of the block, and the Pico side of the harness gets attached to Channel B on the Pico. Dealers do NOT use the Pico branded software for this test; they use the GM NVH software for this (both software are installed on shop computers, the GM NVH and the Pico one). The GM NVH software then gets set up to use the supplied sensor/harness as a microphone and then a 30 second or more clip gets recorded. That clip then gets analyzed by a special test that is in GM SPS2 (service programming) and will pass or fail the data. So far engines that I've seen pass pull in the realm of 50-65dB sound range at the 2000rpm the data is recorded at.

Ecoboost will maul the 6.6L in the hills, then need a complete teardown in 60k miles. The 6.6L is a stout engine, but it's underwhelming power-wise.

Wrapped my door panel inserts to match my katzkins seats

Got a console sub project going on another site. Got these Clazzio seat covers for less then $400 and installed them. Love them. They feel better then factory leather. Anyone interested in purchasing these seat covers pm me for seller info.

Well, gas prices would be low if we didn't have a combined 12 years of ideologues chirping about how "evil" oil and oil companies were. Why, you ask? When people say things like that, would YOU fork out millions of your dollars to build one? Nobody who understands how business operates would on their worst day! We don't have anywhere near the amount of refineries capable of refining light sweet crude, which is a TX staple (and most of the USA from what I understand), so it all gets sold overseas where they have that capability. We haven't built a new refinery in America since the late 70's!! This is all thanks to militant environmentalism. All our ancient refineries can handle the dirty, mid-east oil ... so we have to import it. We've been beholden to global market speculators FOREVER. I get it - everyone, even us Conservatives, want clean air and water (contrary to corporate media's take ...). But, shooting yourself in the foot based on unproven "science" is just plain STUPID. Not one person on this planet would run their household like this! While America suffers due to all these restrictions, China and India mine coal and burn whatever they need to to keep their BILLIONS of people comfortable and fed. Building an new refinery today doesn't mean an environmental disaster! They seem set on believing that green energy and similar profits as big oil are going to happen full scale. Not in our lifetime ... unless AI dreams up something earth-shattering. Since we could be less than 3 years away from a 180° political shift, NOT ONE oil company is going to dare spend the tens of millions of dollars of an investment, only to be shot down in flames by the next enviro-nazi. Do you blame them? So ... enjoy the fuel prices if you don't like the current leadership. Even with the war, prices would be $2 a gallon cheaper on average if we could refine what we have, and not be in a monetary stranglehold dictated by global speculators. And here's another take: IF prior presidents had taken care of Iran decades ago instead of bending over backwards and feeding them pallets of cash, we wouldn't be here right now!!

Its reusable unless its leaking. No need to change it. Seen these trucks with original drain plugs like 5-10 years old. Also. Its not on backorder. TLDR: Send it. I've never changed one on any of my trucks, and they've never leaked.

Hey guys, wanted to just share something that ive been working on for the last couple weeks. I got my 2026 Silverado 2500 with the 6.6L Duramax. I previously came from a 2020 3500 with the 6.6L Gas motor. So far im loving the new truck and the Duramax. I wanted to get the iDash Pro for the truck but with the gauge and the pod, man it was pretty much over $600 after shipping. So instead i decided to try to build my own application that could display similar data on the trucks nice infotainment screen. There is tons more real estate there anyways. So thats what ive done. I bought the OBDLink MX+ to get data off the OBD-II CAN bus. I bought a small ESP32 dev board to interface with the OBDLink, and then i built an Android Auto app that i installed on the truck through a private Google Play release. So far everything is working great. Im still very heavily developing the software so there are lots of things i want to implement, but here is a screenshot of the screen so far. I have configuration screens and some other data that is not in the screenshot but this is the main area. I think im going to redo the way these gauges are shown and put more of the large gauges up instead of the 4 that i have now, with the smaller ones below. Has anyone done anything similar? Sorry for the finger prints all over the screen... ill get some better images later

To provide you all with a resolution, my truck was fully repaired under warranty. All the clutches in the transmission were burnt, as well as a bunch of other damage, they replaced those, the pump, the torque converter, and other parts, flushed everything out, and I'm back in action. Truck runs great and I have a 12 month/12k mile warranty on the work. Thank you to @GMCustomerService for advocating on my behalf in this situation as well. It took a while (5 weeks!) but it was done right.

You should look into Valvoline Restore and Protect oil. It has shown excellent cleaning properties

Planetary gear sets are particularly noisy because of the sympathetic vibration of multiple gear sets of identical design generating reinforcing noise energy. It’s a common, known issue with helicopter main rotor drive transmissions. However, the designer/builder should be taking comlonly known design measures to minimize the noise. For GM to simply say “normal noise” for a particularly noisy gear set is to ignore the engineering/builder challenge to minimize noise for such gear sets, and indicates laziness and lack of care. Unfortunately as a consumer all we typically can do is vote with our dollars. As a professional aviation systems analyst with vibration and noise expertise, I have become so disgusted with current automotive manufacturers that the rule I follow is not to buy any product that doesn’t have at least a ten-year track record. We cannot rely on the integrity of manufacturer’s engineering organizations to put out good products, and can only rely on demonstrated reliability. It’s sad, but they asked for it.

Service manual say 0" to 1/2" down so if you fill even with the hole you are fine. Who knows what the volume is at the two different levels but its not significant. I bought a Banks cover and it is going to require 5+ qts. I bought into the hype of the shape of the cover on the Banks not causing aeration.

Gonna need taller boots cause its getting deep. This is a truck enthusiast forum - if I wanted to here this crap I'd look a thousand other places before here. Friendly reminder why there is a block function.

Had a talk with my doctor yesterday, I've been feeling very well. Surgery was cancelled, see how I do.

Are you happy with it? That's what matters. I'd bet there is a member or two around here that after seeing your work would let you have a go at theirs. Take pride in you work. Especial at things your not a Pro at or trained to do and you get such a nice result doing.

I’m really not too afraid of this thing either. 1971 Pontiac LeMans I bought in 1985. It WILL drink gas though as it’s around 630 hp and 610 tq with a 3 speed trans.

Because the OEMs are obsessed with telling us NOT to. No such thing as lifetime fluids. You should have seen ATF in a 6 speed from 07-15 after maybe 30,000-40,000mi. You'd be insane to keep running it beyond that. The severe service schedule for GM trucks is every 45,000mi for transmission. 90+% of vehicles just based on where they are located fall under severe service (extreme temperature swings during the year). Factor in driving styles, habits, short trips, long trips, towing, heavy payloads, etc. Also... its not 5year/70,000mi powertrain warranty. All GM gas cars and trucks except for the 2.7 Turbomax are 5 year/60,000mi powertrain warranty since 2016. The Turbomax for 2024-current has the 5 year/100,000mi powertrain warranty, same as the 3.0 and 6.6 Duramax. Shorter oil change intervals for engines, transmissions, differentials and transfer cases has worked perfectly fine for decades prior, no reason those same practices can't still be followed. Especially engine oil changes. VVT, AFM, turbocharging, low tension rings, tighter tolerances, all the MORE reason to change oil more frequently as long drains can increase deposit rates and carboning.

Closing the loop on this, replacing the injector allowed the truck to run well and be tuned. It made 304hp and 333ftlbs on the rollers, with a 33" tall A/T tire and 93 octane. Unfortunately I dont have a comparison to before all the work but it feels pretty healthy. Very close to some 6.2L trucks I have driven.

More $ wasted chasing a dream. You are still pushing 2.5 tons of steel down the road. Put the truck back to 100% stock if you really want to keep it, but spending money to get better mileage is a pipe dream. Spend 100's to save pennies.

We had one of these when I was a kid

https://floridatorqueconverters.com/Torque-Converter-77-JMBXSD.html You haven't killed it yet. But keeping the GM converter will assure you will. Have you done the 70C TBV yet? Have you been diligent about fluid changes on the severe schedule? 30K intervals? Heat and a weak converter clutch cover kill them often and hard. Clutch frags, eats the pump, clutches, valve body. So if it's doing well, do the upgrades, do the services and drive the current ride into the ground. Way cheaper to keep her and the upgrades and services way cheaper than a new or even rebuilt unit.

The 6L90 has at least 15 years of excellent service experience even before this particular installation. My L8T uses less than a pint of oil between 3750 mile interval oil changes. I’m 61, and, barring an accident, I suspect my 2021 3500 will be the last truck I buy. My son already has claimed it when I’m done. He’ll have to arm wrestle my granddaughter, though. She and I have already caught a lot of salmon while camping with that truck, so she has a legitimate legal claim.

I'm this old.