OntheRoadAgain

Hi-I am new here. I am a woman with no mechanical skills whatsoever! I have a 95 K1500 Z71 that I have owned since new. I now use it to just pull a horse trailer or pick up supplies. It sits for the most part and only gets driven 3k miles or so a year. It has been a great truck; it never needed anything up until now. Now it seems like everything is falling apart at once! Here is what has been replaced in the last few months: water pump, intake manifold gasket, entire rear end, and a minor oil leak was fixed.

I had to make some longer trips over the weekend with it; I was driving on the interstate maybe 20 miles or so. It drove fine on the highway, but I did notice a hot odor...like something was cooking in the engine! It seemed to come out the vents when I turned the heater on. The temp gauge never even got to the halfway point though.

Also, when I came to a stoplight on the offramp, the RPMs would fluctuate. It would go from idling at 600, down to 500, start to get shakey, then back up to 600. It would do this for 10-15 seconds then be okay. At the last stoplight, the Check Gauges light came on. The light was flickering, like there was a short somewhere. The gauges were all reading normal. After I got going again, the light went off. The truck seemed to drive fine once I was moving again.

Any ideas what could have caused these issues and if they could be related? I will be taking it to a mechanic, but would like to know what might be the issue and if it is going to be a lot more $$ I will be spending on a diagnosis and repairs.

Thanks for any help!

Fishinfooleric10@aol.com

The only thing that i can think of is you might have a blown head gasket. The burning smell could be the motor burning coolant that is leaking in from the head. The coolant leaking into the head could not be letting the motor completely heat up either. I had a blown head gasket and it had a rough idle but when going it ran fine. DO NOT run this truck hard if that's the case because you could do like I did and run it hard and have coolant pour in there and blow the motor. You can do a few simple checks to see if it might be blown 1. watery oil 2. yellowish nasty stuff on the inside of the oil cap 3. notice your coolant jug is getting lower. Now i could be wrong with all this I'm just throwing out a possibility because the whole check gauges light throws me off. I hope this helps you and hope you get it fixed without a hole in your pocket.

OntheRoadAgain

Oh no, that would be really bad, wouldn't it? The coolant is staying up. It was leaking coolant and they replaced the intake manifold gasket and it has stayed okay since. They just changed the oil; it looks okay to me, but maybe a little light in color? I'll have to find the oil cap today and see if there is anything on the inside of the cap. Truck will be sitting for a while until I can get it back to the mechanic anyway. Thanks for your reply!