Top 5 Problems Chevy S-10 ZR2 Truck 2nd Generation 1994-2004

In this video, we're going to be going over the top five problems on this second generation S10 pickup.

Now, there's nothing wrong with this truck. There's nothing wrong with owning one or buying one. I actually used to own a truck just like this myself and I loved it, but every truck or vehicle has their problems, and we're just going to go over the top five for this.

Number one, the heater core. So two of the symptoms for a faulty heater core are, one you don't have any heat. You go to drive around, the engine is warmed up, you turn the heater on, and there's nothing coming out. It's just cold air. What most likely happened is the heater core is plugged up. Now the coolant, maybe you didn't flush the coolant enough, or maybe it just happened to have some extra sediment in there and cause the heater core to plug up. In that instance you have two options. You can either try to flush the heater core out and maybe get a couple more miles out of it, or you replace the heater core.

To replace the heater core, you're gonna have to pull this whole dash out, you're gonna pull the steering column out, and the heater box out to replace it. When you pull the heater box out, then you can access the heater core, put the new one in, put it all back together. It's a big job, but it's not that hard.

The other symptom you may notice is the windshield fogging up while you're driving, and you may smell something sweet. What's going on there is the heater core is actually leaking. You may even notice it on the passenger side on the floor, some coolant. In that case, there's nothing else you can do. All you have to do is replace it.

Number two, the intake gaskets. Now, this is a V6 engine, and you have a head on each side, and in the middle is the intake gaskets. And coolant actually flows through the intake gaskets, so you're gonna have a coolant leak somewhere behind the water pump, and you may think it's a water pump, but chances are it's just the intake gaskets.

Now to do the intake gasket, you have to take all this stuff off from up top. You have to take the distributor out and access it underneath. You don't have to take the upper intake off. There's a separate gasket there. You can leave that all attached. You do have to take the fuel lines out. And you don't have to take the valve covers off to do this intake gasket, which makes it a little bit easier for you to pull this AC compressor out of the way, but you do not...you don't need to evacuate the AC refrigerant. You can just take these four bolts out for the compressor and then with these hoses, just move it aside. So that makes it a little easier. It's kind of a big job, but not that bad.

Some of the symptoms you may find, your coolant level is low, or you may see coolant dripping on the ground. But if the coolant level is low and you don't see anything, it could still be the intakes. Because of the way that gaskets are, it's right next to where the oil is on the intake, so it could be actually dripping coolant into the block itself. So if you see coolant in your engine oil, if you check your oil and it's really high, and it looks milky, chances are you got coolant in it. And you definitely want to replace the intakes at that time, because eventually it's going to be bad, really bad, for your motor.

You may also notice in the coolant reservoir, there could be oil in there, some cross contamination. So make sure you replace those intake gaskets. It's pretty important.

Number three, the distributor. Now it's located right back here. Here's the distributor cap. Underneath there is the rotor. Now you want to make sure you routinely change the cap and the rotor. Check your owner's manual for how often you should do that. Normally around 60,000 to 100,000, not only the distributor cap and rotor but also the distributor...the internals sometimes wear, and could cause some problems. Now what you might find is, you're not able to start the engine. It'll turn over just from catch and also misfire. You may end up with some P0300 codes, and that could have been the cause.

Something you can check on this is if you take the cap off, there's two screws, one on this side, one on the other side, and take a look at the terminals on the distributor cap, and then also look at the rotor itself and see if there's any corrosion, or if there's any carbon tracks or anything, then those definitely need to be replaced. One thing you can do is the caps themselves are numbered. So, like this is terminal one, or this is cylinder one, so just mark that with one. This one's five. Just take a felt tip marker, and three. That way when you go to put it back together you know where they go.

Number four, front wheel bearings. You may notice while you're going down the road at certain speeds normally over 30 miles an hour, you will hear a growling in the front wheels, and it may not just be the tires of the truck, but it may be the actual wheel bearings. And this one, you don't really hear it too much, but you can jack the front of the vehicle up and try to spin the wheel and see if you can hear it. And a lot of times if you grab the wheel at the top and the bottom, see if there's any play there. If there's any play, you want to check it out. It could be the wheel bearing itself.

Number five, the fuel pump. Now the fuel pump's located inside the gas tank, and to replace it, you're gonna either have to pull the gas tank down, or if you feel like it, if you have a lot of friends, you can take the bed off the vehicle and move it to the side, and then you can access the pump. Depending on your vehicle's age and the rust, it might be either easier to do it one way or the other. So one of the symptoms that you get from a bad fuel pump is the engine won't start. It'll just crank and crank and crank. It won't start.

The other symptom is that it has an extended crank. So you go to start the vehicle and it just cranks and cranks and cranks and eventually kicks on. What you can do in that instance is turn the key on. Don't try to start it, then turn the key off, and then turn the key on again and try to start it and it should start right up. What there is is there's actually a valve inside the fuel pump itself that when that valve goes bad, all the gas goes back into the tank, and then there's no fuel in the lines or no pressure. And then when you go to crank it, it's not readily available, so it needs to prime the system first every time you go to start the vehicle after it sat for a couple of hours.

Some of the things you can do to prolong the life of your fuel pump is keeping more than a quarter of a tank of gas in the fuel tank. That's gonna keep the fuel pump cool, and also replacing your fuel filter, located right here. You want to replace that about every 30,000 miles or less. Keep the good flow of fuel. Don't put too much strain on the fuel pump.

Now I have a bonus one for you that could save you a lot of money. On the actual transfer case there's a vacuum switch at the top. Now what happens when you engage the four wheel drive, you push the button, it sends a signal to the encoder motor which electronically is going to shift the transfer case into four wheel drive. And then that pushes on this little switch right here that is vacuum actuated. That is going to send vacuum to an actuator on the front differential that's connected to this cable right here that's going to engage the front differential. Sometimes this vacuum switch gets stuck in the open position where the vacuum's gonna be continually feeding the front differential. So, in that case when you shift back into two wheel drive, the front differential is still engaged, and that's going to cause excessive fuel mileage and wearing of front end components, and you don't want to do that.

So to take this out, it's pretty easy, just use a 7/8 wrench. You just pull the vacuum lines off. Now this little ball, if you see that ball flush with the bottom of the sensor, then that ball is stuck. This should normally be like this. And the transfer case just pushes that in.

Now, that's one bad symptom of this being bad, but the worst symptom is actually this leaking transfer case fluid. If the seals inside there go bad, it can cause a lot more issues. So that vacuum switch when the transfer case fluid goes through the switch, it's going to go up this line, this vacuum line, where it gets the vacuum from the engine. Now that doesn't seem too bad that, okay, you know, you're going to lose some fluid into the engine, but that's not the bad part. The bad part is the fact that this line is also connected to your HVAC system. The HVAC system in this vehicle are vacuum actuated, and when those get fluid on them, they're gonna cause the rubber part of the actuator to deteriorate and go bad, and then your HVAC doors aren't gonna open and close to do their job. It's really expensive to fix. So behind the glovebox, if you flip the glovebox down, there's this junction right here, this goes to your HVAC system. You just get a little screwdriver in here and you just pull that out. You're going to actually see if there's any fluid in there, if you see any oil type fluid. There shouldn't be any oil in there at all. Now if that happens, you want to replace that switch but you also have to clean out all these lines, and that can be somewhat difficult. And these are some of the actuators. Here's the fresh door actuator or recirculation door actuator. And then this one right here, this is another actuator, and it goes to the vehicle. And there's a couple others. But put that back in.

So the fluid can destroy all those actuators, and it can destroy the control unit, if it gets into the control unit. Then you're gonna replace that. Overall, this job gets really expensive so it's a good idea to just replace that switch regularly. I would recommend doing it every couple years or three or four years, you know, depending on the mileage you drive.

So those are our top problems that we have found with this vehicle. If you needed any of those parts, make sure you check out 1aauto.com. If you enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to our channel. Ring that bell. Turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our videos.