Ok where to start. Bought an 04 2500hd a week ago, $6100.00. Four door, needed tires so put 4 standard size all terrains on. Two days after purchasing notice white smoke at idle and some light tapping under hood. All gauges were not working so had a guy fix them for 150.00. He said fuel sending unit must be bad b/c fuel gauge still didnt work. Its on order, put some gumout injector cleaner in tank, decided to drive it a little to see if it might clean out the injector. Changed oil and filter. Freaking autozone recommended 20w-50w which I know now is wrong.grrrr I decided to drive it to pick up a part for my tractor 15 miles from home today. Ran fine smoke still there but less, of course didnt let it idle much. Figure injectors have a crack in them as diesel smell in fuel, leaving welding shop heading home truck starts right up travels 300 yards and shuts off like a switch. Turns over will not start. Used prime pump (at first without opening screw and blew wif sensor out of bottom of fuel filter. Tighten that back up re primed then primped fuel rail by using pressure valve to bleed fuel in rail. Plenty of fuel present. But no starting, just turns over. Another oddity is it seems the fuel gauge started working as soon as the truck stopped.. go figure. I have limited resources sitting here on side of road but was wondering if anyone had any ideas that I might have overlooked?

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Ok got it home by pumping primer while cranking. 30 sec or so of cranking started up. Got home let idle for a few minutes smoking but hard to tell color. Kinda white I guess. Is there a way to check injector + - Values myself or must u take it in? When I go about fixing this is there a better way to fix injectors and fuel piping to get better long-term results. I've been spoiled with my 7.3 ford ... too bad its an ambulance work truck and wont haul my goose neck. Should I just fix and sell and buy a 24 valve Cummings? Want something reliable with good fuel mileage. Thought ford stod for fix or repair daily not chevy!!!! Major buyers remorse here, should have researched better I guess. Any advise would be nice.

 

Did it throw any codes at all? White smoke usually means fuel is not burning correctly. Fuel injectors may be your problem here. You can always do an injector clean on them to see if that helps.

https://www.dieselbombers.com/chevy-...r-testing.html

Give it a look. Its a few bucks to clean them out besides a wad of cash replacing them.

 

That's the weird part, had a code for what I believe was idiot light being burned out and one for a shift sequence in tranny when I bought it , but cleared them out and no new codes? When the truck started again fuel gauge was back to not working. Lol I dont know what to think. I know most of the forums ive read have said injectors are a main problem. Was reading up in these forums about 2 cycle oil, would that be a wise choice for a duramax?

 

I run Opti-lube on mine. There is a independent test that was done showing a lot of the additives available and Opti was at the top. Did you look at the link I sent you, that shows you how to do the injector cleaning. I did that in mine and had the rates checked and they were perfect at 100k. The guy was really surprised. I need to run it again. I am at 185k now.

Here is the link
Lubricity Additive Study Results - Diesel Place : Chevrolet and GMC Diesel Truck Forums

 

I was reading through it as we speak, do u run the addictive in every tank? I also was wondering which oil, my 7.3 does well on rotella, but was wondering if a synthetic would be better for the duramax?

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I will be knocking down gm's door in the morning. Sure hope that works. Truck has 265000 on it and have no history on it, but judging by what I found so far, previous owners were more use and abuse than love and care for. Hopefully shes not too far gone, im nearly at 600000 on my 7.3 would like to get at least that outa this one.

 

I run Rotella Synthetic. You can pick it up at Walmart in the blue jugs for around $22 each. Takes 2 1/2 to do the oil change. I run Baldwin filters on mine and have a duel fuel filter setup with Racor and Cat filter 5 and 2 micron. I have the 52 gallon Titan tank installed and yeah I try to use Optilube every time. I run the summer and then every so often I will put in Opti XPD. You gotta use more XPD per gallon so I dont go crazy with it. I put over 10K miles in a month so I burn through the stuff pretty quick. But the cost is very little if it keeps the engine running good. Getting ready to do an oil analysis from Blackstone. You might want to get on their website and request a kit. Takes 1-2 weeks to get to you and it only cost $25 to get it tested. Can really give you some insight on what may be going on in your engine.

Here is the link:
Blackstone Labs

 

Hey thanks for all the info. Ill update shortly with some results of what ive figured out. Gonna look at some better filtration and clean those pesky injectors tomorrow if possible!!! Crossing fingers on that, 1600.00 for new ones would suck!!!