I've been borrowing my sister's 2002 2dr 4x4 Blazer while mine is in the shop for a fuel pump. It's been running absolutely fine (better than mine, actually). Now tonight there's a problem. My sister started it up, grabbed the gear lever, and it shut off before she could even put it in reverse. It's like someone turned the key off. I went out, started it, put it in drive and it seemed fine. We did this several times, and it randomly but consistently shut off as you touch the gear lever and start pulling it towards you.

It seems to me that there is a short somewhere. I thought it might be the reverse lights, but I don't believe the lights come on until the truck is fully in reverse. Has anyone seen this before? Any ideas where to start looking?

 

open steering column and take a quick look to see whats goin on... try covering everything that touches metal...

 

Could be ignition switch. When they go they start all kinds of strange stuff. Just an idea.

 

So we discovered that there is a sensor that is activated by pulling back the gear lever. Disconnecting that sensor seems to have fixed the problem. The only difference now is that the gear indicator no longer indicates the truck is in park. I'm not too worried about it but hopefully it's a fairly cheap part to replace.