Howdy folks - I just purchased a 1995 S-10 Blazer this weekend. It's a 2-door automatic. It has about 146,000 miles on it.
I had to laugh when I stumbled upon the list of "usual blazer quirks" or whatever it is. I got some of those....especially the rattles and noises but hey it's not perfect and I didn't expect it to be.
I bought it from a person about 120 miles away and brought it home to Wyoming yesterday. I knew it had a few "little" things....well hopefully little. Thought I'd give my synopsis and you could maybe tell me how far off I am or if I'm pretty much right. When I test drove it they told me the 4wd didn't work and hadn't worked as long as they've had it. Also getting an ABS light and a Service Engine Soon light that seems to come on intermittently but more often than not. Well on the trip home, I was running the air conditioner and noticed that at times the air was coming out of the front vents like it should. When I was gassing it and the engine was revving higher, seems the air was coming out of the "bi-level" stages and even sometimes it would switch and was coming out of the defroster vents. Let off the gas, engine revs down, air returns to its normal function coming out of the vents on the dash. My first thought here is VACUUM. I know the damper for the a/c and heat is controlled by vacuum. That would make sense. Also, I've read on here that a vacuum controls the 4wd. Wouldn't surprise me if the ABS system was ALSO done with some sort of switching or pumping from the vacuum system. And would a problem with the vacuum system trigger a Service engine Soon light? So......am I pretty close here? I think if I understand it, the vacuum canister probably keeps the vacuum consistent with the revvings of the engine up and down and I'd bet that's probably the culprit. I'd think if it was actually the "air pump" (does the blazer HAVE an air pump?) that there probably wouldn't be much vacuum at all and there'd be more problems. Anyways.....I wanted to know how close I was on this. At 1460000 miles, nothing surprises me. A quick look under the hood shows some of the vacuum hoses ARE starting to deteriorate a bit....getting that grungy dry rotting on the outside but still in tact. Could it be just a vacuum leak?
One other thing I wanted to mention that MAY be vacuum-related. On the way from Utah to Wyoming there's a pretty steep climb on Interstate 80 (Parley's Summit for those of you that know the area). Well going over Parley's it was fine....only could maintain about 65mph to 70mph - which is fine...I didn't expect more than that. However after coming down the other side it did a little something wierd. Out of the blue, the speedometer needle dropped to zero then popped back up again. The engine never died and this was only for about a half second. When the speedometer needle popped back up to 70, the ABS light and the brake light came on then went off a second later. The Service Engine Soon light even went off and didn't come back on for a while. About a minute later it did it again. That was it.....just those two times and it never did it again. However it seems like after this happened, the transmission would not shift into overdrive. Just stayed there revving a little higher than it should. After I got home to town and turned the vehicle off and got in it again, the tranny seemed normal...overdrive and all and has been normal since. That one's a puzzler but I thought that could be vacuum-related somehow too.
Those are my main concerns. I live in WYOMING....I really would like the 4wd to work. I did test it and yeah sure enough I can pull the lever into 4H, but the little diagram doesn't indicate that it went into gear and there's no clunking or anything. No matter what I do I can't get it past that point into 4L.
Other little things - the automatic door locks. They lock. They don't UNlock. I hear the relay clicking behind the glovebox somewhere when I push the button to lock. When I push the button in the other direction to unlock there's no clicking or anything. I'm guessing it's a relay. Probably there's a LOCK relay and an UNLOCK relay. For all I know the UNLOCK relay may be partially unplugged. Again not sure how far off I am on this. I'm guessing I'll need to remove the under part of the dash there on the passenger side to access those relays. There ARE a couple of relays accessible right there in the glove box, but those aren't the door lock relays. It's apparently behind those somewhere.
Fuel guage - Ah yes....another common problem and from what I've read, probably the fuel sending unit. Again these folks had the vehicle for a couple of years and it never worked. I wouldn't mind having it working although I can probably continue to use the trip meter like so many Blazer owners do when the fuel sending unit goes bad. However I have an interesting addendum to that. I was looking around underneath the back end yesterday and I noticed the harness that plugs into the fuel tank. There's 3 wires on that plug and it's plugged in. Thinking that's the fuel pump. However there's another couple of wires on that same harness. They are just hanging off there....there's even a tag on them that says "always disconnect the battery....." SO...I'm wondering if the fuel pump already had to be changed out and maybe one of the previous owners did it themselves? Maybe didn't HOOK UP the fuel sending wires? The guage is way past full (like at 3 o-clock) and just sits there. So HMMMMMMMMM.... any ideas there?

Everything else is okay. Engine runs great and runs strong....I don't sense any problems there or with the tranny other than what I mentioned above.

Please feel free to move this to the right "area" of the forum if I'm posting in the wrong place or something. I'm a newbie to the forum but I figured I'd get an account since I expect to have my Blazer for a while and like other Blazer owners I'll have my share of quirks too!

Michael
Evanston, Wyoming

 

First off, welcome to the forum.

*Moving to 2nd Gen Tech*

You can create another "welcome" thread in the New Member area if you so desire.

Your HVAC and 4wd issues definitely sound like a vacuum problem. There are many threads on this already so have a look around a bit then post up back in this thread if you have more specific questions.

As far as the SES light and ABS issues, you really should have the PCM scanned to see what is going on there.

The ABS issue could be caused by dirty or broken front wheel speed sensors. On the pre-98 models, these were not adjustable for running clearance which stinks, but you should be able to inspect the wiring near the front wheels.

Concerning the fuel level sending unit, the only real way to test this is to check the leads at the pump. Since the same connector is used for the sending unit as is used for the power to the pump, I would say it is not likely that it is simply disconnected. If the pump was replaced though, it is possible that the new pump came with a new connector and the resulting splice joints could be the source of the problem.

 

Well I wanted to post an update.....good news! This morning I decided to look under the hood and just satisfy my curiosity about the vacuum line for the 4wd actuator. Lo and behold the line was just lying there not connected to the actuator. I removed the battery and the tray and hooked the vacuum line back on to the actuator and that was that. 4wd works now! However on a side note, the vehicle then started billowing white smoke out of the back. I got nervous and called my mechanic and he took a look and told me it was probably oil and stuff that got into the emissions cannister because of the vacuum leak. He said give it bit and drive it and it'll all burn right off. It did. No smoke at all now and running better although I can still hear a hiss inside the dash....so I think I found my next vacuum leak. HVAC still blows from different vents depending on vehicle speed. I bet that'll go away once I find that vacuum leak. He said the SES light was tossing an O2 code and that was probably due to the stuff that was burning off in the smoke. He said as it burns off and quits smoking, the light will probably go away too. Right now no smoke, and the light almost is always off. Will still come on if I "get on it" real hard.
So...making progress! He also said to check around the front tires for a wire that's disconnect or grouding.....that's probably the ABS problem. I've had to do that before on another vehicle. The wire had gotten sliced while riding in the hills...so I imagine that'll hopefully be an easy fix too.