One of my coworkers recently picked up a '95 S-10 Base, 4.3L, 4L60E auto 2WD for $800. The truck is surprisingly straight for the price...OE paint that is okay, minimal body damage, no rust, etc. It runs and drives fairly well, though is a little slow starting and smells like it is running rich.
The biggest immediate problem, and why the truck was $800, seems to be a bad neutral safety switch. The truck can only be started in neutral, the gear indicator (PRNDL) light is stuck in N, and it has no reverse lights. Other than that, it drives fine. No apparent trans issues, it just doesn't know what gear it's in.
Looking online, the part is about $50, and more like $75 at the dealer. Not a huge deal and the owner is willing to buy it. Neither one of us knows what we are doing as far as replacing it though.
Looking at the pictures, it appears this switch might be inside the steering column where the shifter is. Can the steering column be opened up and the switch accessed without removing the air bag equipped steering wheel?
Also, is there any hope of cleaning up and salvaging the old switch, or should we just replace? $50 isn't much, but this is an $800 truck. I saw a how-to on cleaning this switch on a Jeep Cherokee while Googling, but nothing S-10 specific. One day when we are both off we may go to Pull-A-Part and try to find the switch on a junked truck so we can get an idea of how to replace it and if it can be opened up and cleaned.
And yes, I know the BITOG consensus on working on other peoples' stuff, and am an advocate of not doing it, but this is a pure project truck. The owner has a nice Suburban that is his DD, the S-10 is just for messing with and he knows any work/advice from me is a good guess/"at least we tried" kind of thing.
The biggest immediate problem, and why the truck was $800, seems to be a bad neutral safety switch. The truck can only be started in neutral, the gear indicator (PRNDL) light is stuck in N, and it has no reverse lights. Other than that, it drives fine. No apparent trans issues, it just doesn't know what gear it's in.
Looking online, the part is about $50, and more like $75 at the dealer. Not a huge deal and the owner is willing to buy it. Neither one of us knows what we are doing as far as replacing it though.
Looking at the pictures, it appears this switch might be inside the steering column where the shifter is. Can the steering column be opened up and the switch accessed without removing the air bag equipped steering wheel?
Also, is there any hope of cleaning up and salvaging the old switch, or should we just replace? $50 isn't much, but this is an $800 truck. I saw a how-to on cleaning this switch on a Jeep Cherokee while Googling, but nothing S-10 specific. One day when we are both off we may go to Pull-A-Part and try to find the switch on a junked truck so we can get an idea of how to replace it and if it can be opened up and cleaned.
And yes, I know the BITOG consensus on working on other peoples' stuff, and am an advocate of not doing it, but this is a pure project truck. The owner has a nice Suburban that is his DD, the S-10 is just for messing with and he knows any work/advice from me is a good guess/"at least we tried" kind of thing.
