'05 Duramax questions

R Q

R Q

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2005
Location
Charlotte
Looking at an '05 3500 Duramax for a work truck. Its extremely low miles and warehouse kept so in great shape with only 20,890 miles on it.
What can I expect , good and bad, from this motor and trans? It's an auto so I'm presuming Allison trans, it didn't have the regular badging on it and the place was closed when I looked.
 
Yes it has the 5 speed Allison. According to the interwebs you may need to change injectors every 50k. Hubs too.

I found hubs on Amazon for $150

The 06-07 is when they fixed the injector issues. Other members may chime in saying they've never had to change injectors. It's kind of luck of the fuel I'm guessing.
 
This is untrue for this motor IMO. The LB7 has the problematic injectors they are located underneath the valve cover and sit in a hot oil bath and eventually fail (stuck, clogged, cracked bodies, blown nozzles etc) I own one and have put 18 injectors in it in 276k miles. We also have another truck in the family with 189k on the original injectors. People's experience will range all across the board depending on how/where the truck is used.

The LLY ran from '04.5 to-06 and was changed in design with the addition of a VVT. The 06+ LBZ is the "internet" desired engine for multiple reasons but we have had 2 of LLY's running on our farm with over 200k+ trouble free miles.

Change your fuel filters religiously and I recommend an AirDog/FASS as well and you will have a strong running truck. I wouldn't be scared of that motor; Just my .02.
 
I've changed far less lly/lbz injectors than lb7. But they still fail! Any common rail is susceptible to the high return based failures. I've seen more head gasket and internal failures it seems like in lly than the lbz. Good truck all around though.
 
LLY engines ran from 04.5-05. The 06 LLY were essentially LBZ engines with the smaller tune. All hard parts were the same and came with the 6 speed allison. LLY don't have the injector issues that the LB7 did but they still have a few common issues.
-LLY had a problem with injector harness that would cause a miss on #2 & #7. Google "Ice Pick Fix"
-LLY have a overheating issue and headgasket issue. The cause is the turbo inlet is way too small and restricted. The fix is run a factory LBZ turbo mouthpiece or a AFE bladerunner. If running the AFE you can use the factory air cleaner, if you decide on the LBZ you must modify the air cleaner or run a takeoff LBZ intake.

If the LLY is a 06 none of the above applies.
 
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