1986 6.2 Diesel

A friend of mine has this truck for sale for only $500.00. It's actually in pretty good shape (except for the yellow paint job.) It belonged to the School Board, so I'm guessing it has always had the oil changed. I test drove it and it seems to run good. Is this the crappy 6.2? or is this engine decent?

Thanks, Sonny

Reply to
Robin AndrePont
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1986 would be the 6.2L normally aspirated diesel.

Cheers - Jonathan

Reply to
Jonathan Race

My 84 6.2 in a Suburban almost made it to 300K miles. Wasn't treated too easy at that. One tough engine!

Reply to
George

Don't let it overheat or the head gasket(s) will leak very quickly after. The vee-belts for the accessories have been known to slip off, actually after one does, it takes the others with it -- no water pump, overheats quickly. Otherwise, pretty solid engine.

Reply to
Franko

Eek! Are the pulley sheaves really that shallow, or is this the result of people not keeping an eye on their belt tension and allignment?

This, by the way, is one reason I hate serpentine belts. If you lose the serpentine you lose everything!

In my little old diesel S-10 the water pump is driven by all three of the V-belts, which is a good thing, because it had a tendency to throw its alternator belt until I found that the alternator's lower bracket was broken.

AP

Reply to
Alan Petrillo

You could tighten the belts to spec periodically but over time, they stretch and get glazed (fine sandpaper quickly removes the glaze). The very long belts could use idler pulleys/tensioners that may help to keep them from "jumping out" of the pulleys but that's also additional horsepower wasted. Keeping them aligned is also very critical.

I've brought the recommended vee-belts to auto parts stores and searched for "thicker" ones with the same circumference (or close to it) and they haven't slipped off since but that may also be because of very slight alignment issues before.

I believe the serpentines are built stronger than the vees. I would like to see double serpentines on diesels, though.

Franko

Reply to
Franko

Diesels (6.2's) are rough on v-belts. The power surges at lower RPMs of each cylinder firing cause the belts to be jerked around pretty badly. Goes through v-belts pretty quickly. Check the belts for proper tension regularly. Never had one come off, but one shredded like a cat had gotten to it once. Made enough noise I had lots of time to shut down before any damage happened. Pulleys are normal depth and size.

Reply to
George

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