2000 2.2L owner and not an S-10 technically its a Sonoma but its the same little truck. First let me just say I am a fan of these mini vehicles/mini trucks. I've owned everything from big 2500 diesel rigs, regular half tons and now due to the high price of gas, and also partly bc of the build quality and lack of serviceability of newer vehicles, a couple of months ago I purchased a *very cheap* S10/Sonoma.
When I say very cheap, i mean very cheap. 400 bucks cheap. The truck however, reflected the price. It had been abandoned by the previous owner and tucked away in a corner of his barn for mechanical issues he couldn't fix. He was clearing out his property due to him moving and I basically rescued this little truck from the scrap yard... He was a very laid back outdoors/woods guy that in the few years he owned the truck he basically beat the crap out of it until it broke down on him. I say that bc, I could tell from the condition of the interior. He had trash, dirty carpet, and dirt everywhere. The official cause for parking it was "a bad rectifier" however he was the one who primarily diagnosed and did all "repairs" on the truck.. and when I showed up he told me that the motor turned and he had recently done the fuel pump.
He was asking like 600 bucks so I proceed to tell him to start it for me and when he went to put the battery jumper on the poles and handed me the keys to crank it, well it didnt even crank. no click. nothing.
So
I almost walked away right then and there.. However, I took a quick look at the dashboard and thats when I noticed what caught my attention- 100,000 miles... I knew they were original because even though the truck had been abandoned and was really dirty, I could tell from the engine bay that there were some components that looked relatively new. So I took a gamble, offered him the money and knew I was taking a huge gamble on this thing but hey, where else could you buy a whole truck nowadays for 400 bucks?.. The next morning I get to work on it and I start to notice a whole bunch of rigging to get around basic maintenance. I had to start with a battery. but by the end of the day I had discovered the issue: No starter relay. I noticed the guy had placed the shorter serpentine belt that doesn't feed the compressor, so no A/C, and it needed new hoses....
Fair enough. I plop the starter relay and it cranks..
didn't actually start.
But,...
now I know the motor is not locked up. :D
like the determined person that I am, I don't simply give up and continued to pursue. I was going to make his little truck start since I had now seen bigger signs of life...
like I mentioned that he had mentioned to me that he had recently done the fuel pump.. and he had cut out a hole in the bed to get to it so I took a quick look back there and noticed something.. The fuel pump wasn't actually plugged in! HMMM
but rather than just plug it back in, I wanted to confirm his word to me and see that it was a new pump so I took out the entire pump out of the tank and that is when I noticed what I think is the most critical discovery of my entire journey.
The pump was new alright. BUT here was the real shocker.. was when I looked INSIDE the tank. RED gasoline. and I mean like it looked like straight red clay mud. HMM gasoline is definitely not supposed to look like that.. The fuel filter on the "new" pump, completely clogged with rusty gasoline, and thats when It clicked.
The real reason this guy ditched this truck. Who knows how many fuel pumps this guy had been going through and how much money he had been spending on other parts when this truck ran with straight red mud and probably had all sorts of misfires and issues until he finally said f it and left it to rot in a corner of his barn...
Anyways I hoist the baby on my lift and I see the problem. Rusted 25 year old STEEL tank. Like was GM thinking? And this is in south east florida, where we don't have snow. Who knows how many of these truck actually ended up in the scrap yard with the exact same ending simply just over the gas tank!?. and simply I bet people just got tired of trying to chase down a seemingly haunted truck when it all could of been avoided by GM making a tank out of literally anything other than steel..
Sure enough. a quick search and I found that in more recent models like the 03 they had ABS tanks. I was lucky enough to find one on marketplace with a new pump close to me and for 100 bucks, woo hoo!.
I went out and bought it that same afternoon, came back and dropped the old rust bucket and plop the new one in, brand new fuel filter, lower it from the lift
and what do you know?
thing fires first freaking crank.
thing runs and idles like new.
I took a drive in my new (to me) truck and fell in love with it...
next day I went to tag it at the DMV and proceeded to drive the truck all over town.
I drove the truck out 60 miles to the beach and back. and everything was great.
Only thing was it needed brakes and the worn out pads caused one of the calipers to stick, but after you drove it for a while and just pulled over and pumped them, they would unstick and it would continue driving...
In order to arrive at that conclusion, I replaced the master cylinder, booster (a bitch to change), the ABS, both front calipers and hoses (they were on their way out) and literally the only thing left was that it needed new set of brakes and rotors..
This is when I made a big mistake. I basically figured that since the truck was running and functional, that I would go ahead and just put it up for sale, and let someone else take over since I was at the point where if I actually started to replace a lot of these old worn components that were more expensive, I would start to actually put more money into what I was comfortable with (it still had no A/C, and it needed paint).
I figured someone would fall in love with it the same way I did and would see that it would be repaired 100% and painted, to basically have a truck that was as close to its former glory as possible...
So I posted it for sale.. I was very clear in the description that the truck was by no means perfect, that it needed brakes, had no A/C and needed more money to make it fully functional and reliable. I asked for something like 1500 bucks and within a week I had a kid come buy it... I was very specific about the breaks, that he needed to pump them whenever he felt the calipers sticking and if he bought it and wanted to daily it he would need to fix that.
He nodded his head and agreed.
Well..
Kid drove it out of my driveway and not even 10 minutes,
he calls me
truck overheated.
Guy is on the phone telling me that "I should have told him it overheated" and basically telling me everything I just told him NOT to do just 10 minutes before...
I should have left it there and blocked his number.
But since I am probably too nice for my own good, I told him to tell me where he was stuck at and I went to go check on him. This is where he proceeds to break down as well and tell me "he was looking for a reliable truck" that he could "daily drive" and that again I didnt tell him it "overheated".. Well I asked him, and he told me to give him his money back. I could tell he was only just a kid (I am also in my 20s) and that he was biting more than he could chew so I went ahead and told him he made me waste my time and gave him his 1500 back.
I let the truck cool, and drove it back 10 minutes where it sat parked for the next couple of days until I could get my hands on it.
Basically I test drove it, checked the oil, and then checked it again.
No water.
however now I had developed some anxiety over it. The truck had over heated and I am not sure how this little motor could continue to hold on after that...
(1/2)