We bought teenage daughter a 99 Blazer. A month or so ago, she has had a problem with the coil wire, next to the carb. Her truck would shake horrible. Dad showed her how to temp "fix" it, hoping once the weather got nice, he would just change it. It has only happened a few times.
Last night, she was almost home and the truck started doing the shimmy and shake dance again and no acceleration. God love her, being 16, she said "I got this", but it didn't work.
Now when we try to start it, it does a lot of shaking and stalls out rather quickly. I was able to get it running "smooth" for a minute last night, but as soon as I put it in drive and pushed the gas pedal, it stalled out.
We left it sitting on the side of our road last night and tried to start it this morning with the same results. We can hear the fuel pump kick on and it is EXTREMELY loud.
Once the ice rink melts on our road, we will tow it home and replace the coil but looking for other suggestions before going to the auto parts store. This is her first truck and even though its not pretty, its her's and she loves it. Any suggestions?

 

There's so many things that could be. Is there a mechanic shop around you that you trust? I think I'd get their diagnosis on that deal. Maybe it's something easy.

 

It's not out of gas is it?

Changing parts without true diagnosis is typically futile and can be very expensive. It's just not that simple.

If you want to diagnose yourself and are committed to doing what it takes, we can help. But if you want to simply change some parts to see if it starts, begin with the coil wire that you say you had the problem with - then the distributor cap and the rotor. These are maintenance items that commonly have problems on Blazers. Always a good idea to replace the cap/rotor on these. AC/Delco parts are the best choice for ignition systems on these Blazers. Coils do not usually go bad.

If it still doesn't start then some serious diagnosis is in order. We can tell you how to check the coil if that is what you truly believe it is.

 

We did have a mechanic out to the house. He changed the cap, rotor and coil. I was a little upset that he left before charging the battery to see if it was running. We got home, added more gas, just to be safe, charged the battery, it ran for about 1.5 mins then stalled again.
Husb changed the coil plug wire and still didn't start. He put a spark plug into the ignition coil plug wire and no spark. So the truck cranks but doesn't start. We are thinking the problem is somewhere along the piggybacks of the crankshaft sensor, PCM or ICM (I think that is what husb told me last night). We don't want to just start changing parts *****-nilly.
I appreciate any help we can get. Not really wanting to pay a tow truck to haul it to a garage and a little upset at our mobile mechanic right now LOL.

 

Pulled the ICM off son's 99 Blazer. Truck fired up.
Thanks for your help.

 

Glad you found the problem. Thanks for letting us know.