The truck: 2001 Chevrolet 2500HD, crew cab, long bed, 4x4, 8.1/Allison
The good: When it's working right, it does everything I need. Tows cars and horses and goes offroad and gets big things where they need to be regardless of weather and road conditions.
The bad: It keeps berkeleying breaking and replacement parts that don't fail and actually fit seem to be inexplicably hard to come by.
Most recently, the absolutely unreachable HVAC servos inside the dash that I JUST REPLACED are jamming up again, and the radiator blew out and turned out to be a two year, one engine part and EvanB and paranoid_android had to cram the wrong radiator into it to get us home. There was a similar debacle only a couple months ago with steering parts that didn't fit and I had to replace more than once. What do I do here?
Repair option 1: Keep throwing factory parts in to replace broken stuff. This leaves me with a bunch of one or two year only GM crap again.
Repair option 2: Frankentruck. The moment I find out something is unobtanium, I fabricate E36 M3 to make a better replacement. This would mean a universal racing radiator and a bunch of separate fluid coolers for the most recent radiator disaster, and similar stuff as more breaks in the future.
Replace option: Get this thing back together enough to sell and replace with something from a company I trust more than GM. Probably a newer Tundra.
WWGRMD?
Fix and get newer. The tow pig is supposed to be reliable so what's on the trailer doesn't always have to be.
Sonic
UltraDork
6/15/21 10:16 a.m.
With the prices on used trucks now and your skills I would be looking at Option 2 if the rust situation on the truck is good. Any other used truck might bring new and unforeseen problems.
Sonic said:
With the prices on used trucks now and your skills I would be looking at Option 2 if the rust situation on the truck is good. Any other used truck might bring new and unforeseen problems.
This. If you need help finding GM part numbers hit me up. I have that access now.
Option 3. Newest, and lowest mileage as you can stomach/afford.
Do you really want your tow vehicle to be something you have to burn brain cells on?
In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :
No, I don't- but it also defeats the purpose if I can't afford to go racing because I bought a new tow rig. It's a conundrum.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
True, hence: "Newest, and lowest mileage as you can stomach/afford."
Hell, if you want a project I have a big, diesel van that will tow cars and horses. 
I'd do option 3 and the simplest thing that it'll do what you need it to do.
Looks like Rockauto has the correct radiators for $170-280 if you wanted to just get it back together to sell.
I have a 2006 2500 and keep it around for all the reasons everyone does, its pretty great at truck things. I say fix it, grease the suspension every oil change, and keep rolling. I have 177k miles on the stock.... everything. Except lines. berkeley GM cant make brake or transmission lines.
79rex
Reader
6/15/21 10:51 a.m.
In reply to Sonic :
With the prices on used trucks now and your skills I would be looking at Option 2 if the rust situation on the truck is good. Any other used truck might bring new and unforeseen problems.
on the flip side, this means someone will likely pay more for his truck. So maybe it evens itself out?
EvanB said:
Looks like Rockauto has the correct radiators for $170-280 if you wanted to just get it back together to sell.
That's part of the decision I'm trying to make right now. I don't want to just throw another plastic endtank POS in there if it's going to keep going to rallies.
Has it ever stopped you from racing? There's your answer.
Sounds like it's stopped you from being comfortable, and been a bit annoying to repair now and then, but it hasn't stopped you from racing. Sounds like it's cheap and gets the job done, though sometimes annoying.
It's a tow PIG.
For what it's worth, on the construction sites I am on, most bosses drive Fords. But most of the real worker trucks (tool bodies, crew haulers, etc) are Chevys. Very few are 4x4. They are highway riding, fairly reliable, not too comfortable tow pigs.
I used to drive a Chevy when I was working out of it. Now I'm a boss. Haha!
In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :
That depends on your definition- stopped a real, big event? No. Stopped me from going to a rallycross, such as next weekend's DC event? Yes, but only because rallycross isn't that important to me any more. It's hard to say.
Point taken though, so far it's yet to strand me and has only caused stoppages of half a day or so.
Mr_Asa
UberDork
6/15/21 12:03 p.m.
Its a pretty bad time to be buying anything right now. Definite seller's market right now.
I would go with Option 1 while planning for Option 3 when the market stabilizes. You don't want to try and sell a frankentruck.
I’ve been in a similar situation before. With your, mostly reliable, current tow vehicle you know what the issues are. And, since it isn’t a daily driver, you have the time to address the issues.
The radiator seems to be appropriate for an aftermarket solution. Our friend AL (aluminum) could resolve the plastic-ness and provide an upgrade too.
On the other items, you likely are not alone and there are vehicle specific forums where some people may have better (non-Mickey Mouse) fixes to those issues.
Sending some ‘positive waves’ toward the truck wouldn’t hurt either.
Another vote for option 1 or 2 due to the market. On a side note, your truck is basically my dream spec, and I'm sorry to hear you're having issues with it.
In reply to John Welsh :
You are either greatly overestimating my budget, or greatly overestimating how much of a lowball offer John would take. My current truck was less than $4k.
Short term repair, probably option 2. Long term save up some money for option 3 if/when the market returns to normal. A friend recently went the option 3 route moving from an 01 Cummins that was starting to run into regular issues to a new f150 Ecoboost max tow. Zero regrets about it even at ~4x what the old truck sold for. But this was done a month into the pandemic when you could get an f150 for $15k off MSRP without even doing any negotiating. I've joked that he should have kept the old truck around for a year before selling it and he could have almost broken even on the whole thing.
Option 2. Did the new truck thing and the monthly spend ended up being not worth the trade off for disposable cash. Traded 2 year old truck in on a 21 year old..
Replace/upgrade parts so you get to reap the benefits and longevity of doing it right. 90% of the time the vehicle you have is the cheapest option. It's hard to get into anything "good" in the 3/4 and 1ton truck market for less than $20k-$25k... and even then they're 5-10 years old with 100k+ miles.
The 8.1/Allison is a strong long living setup. The GM-ness is meh but livable, and a decent aftermarket thanks to the duramax crowd.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
I am in the same boat. My 03 Sierra Denali needs $900 in brake line replacement work. It has about 350k on it. The rockets disintegrated years ago. Cab corners have some bubbles. The truck has been ridden hard but always starts and does the truck things I need. I am thinking of holding off until the new Maverick comes out. But I like the truck I have.
Well, I've got a shopping cart full of cooling parts on Speedway so... last call before Frankentruck.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
Seems to me like you've gone from trying to keep a pos rally car running, to trying to keep a pos tow vehicle running & functional. I'm not sure that gets you much closer to your goal of doing more rallying?
SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:
For what it's worth, on the construction sites I am on, most bosses drive Fords. But most of the real worker trucks (tool bodies, crew haulers, etc) are Chevys. Very few are 4x4. They are highway riding, fairly reliable, not too comfortable tow pigs.
I used to drive a Chevy when I was working out of it. Now I'm a boss. Haha!
Depends on geography. Around here Bosses driving TRX or Raptors. They change them out every 3 years on a section 179 deduction, so the trucks always remain "reliable."
Us lowly poor folk, drive Tacomas. Because ours have to be reliable enough to get us to work, while the bossses can afford to stay home and diddle their misstressss
