Andy I didn't know you got it fixed, glad to hear it. I felt for ya man when you were going through it and I couldn't offer any more. But you got it congratulations!!!!!

 

Thanks for the reply Andy, I will give that a try.

 

My advice would be to remove the VSS sensor and take it with you to the parts place of your choice.

Autozone took my info over the phone and placed the order which came the next day. As it turned out, what they received was the wrong sensor. Luckily for me, they actually had the correct sensor in stock! Mine is the screw-in type. The one they received in the order was a bolt-on type!

 

I have read just about everything available on the net that I can find on this problem. I'm happy that you found a solution, I'm not so happy with my 95 blazer right now.

Same issues, no speedo, heater fan won't work, and will not shift into 2nd or higher unless manually selected. Drive feels like neutral. 95 Blazer, 4 dr, 4.6 vortec, 4L60-E, 4x4 manual shift NP-231 transfer case. ABS light has always stayed on since I got this from a friend. Has just over 200k miles on it.

Last spring I went up into the mountains, ended up needing 4x4 to get turned around in the snow and came back down, (got some nice pictures), drove home, everything fine until next morning. Started fine runs fine, but no shift speedo, etc. I found this site, and a few others, and everyone said to replace the VSS, so we got a used one from a wrecking yard for free, and it did not change anything. The code reader said it was a P0500 fault, which agreed with everything I read.

While I was under the truck, cursing, and trying to find a sensor on top left of xfer case, (which does not exist on this truck) I did notice that a wire on the O2 sensor had been rubbing on a steel line, and had abraded through. I noted it in my head and ignored it. The truck sat for several weeks while I did some research, and we took it to a couple shops and all the scan codes agreed. P0500 indicates a problem with the VSS sensor. One day I was under the truck and recalled the O2 sensor wire and decided that as long as I was there I would fix that, I put in a butt connector, then on a whim, started it up and test drove it.
VOILA!! everything worked.
As fall approached this year, the problems began coming back intermittently, and it seemed to happen after a bump shook the frame, so I decided my connector fix on the O2 sensor was failing, (crimp style connector, short wires, never expected it to last anyways).
Within the last two weeks the problem came back, and never went away, so I decided it was time to replace that O2 sensor, which probably was not bad, just the wires attached are bad. I expected an immediate fix of the problems, as I had the year before, but alas, no luck. No fix, no change.

I came back to this site and reread every post I could find with VSS in it, and armed with all this, I went to parts store and got a NEW VSS sensor, I just installed it, and I still have no speedo, no shift and no heater fan.

All fuses are good, the VSS is the screw in on the tailshaft type. and there is no other sensor that I can see or find on the xfer case to replace.


I'm open for suggestions here. LOL

 

Mike,

My Blazer (the wife's) is really like new. It has never been on a salty winter road, never been off-road, and as far as I know, it has never been in 4-wheel drive.

Although it is basically 15 years old, it only has a little over 80k miles on it. Until the issue with the VSS, we had never had any problems with it with respect to starting, running, CEL, etc. However, it does have the leaky oil line syndrome to the remote oil filter.

If our vehicle wasn't in such good shape, I'd trade it off and get away from that odd-ball OBD year.

So, at the moment, we will continue to use it! I think it's value is less than $2,500.00. And, no doubt, as far as a trade-in value, we would get far less than that!

I wish you luck with finding the problem(s). The folks here in this Forum were really helpful to me! I've not been back lurking since there have not been any additional issues with our Blazer.

I hang-out at the TDIclub.com web site on a regular basis. I'm in the process of doing an engine transplant from a 2001 VW Jetta to an '84 VW Vanagon.... http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=276798 This is the link for anyone interested in such a project! There are other Conversion projects in that forum.

Andy