my 2001 s10 with 4.3 auto. and 84000 miles shakes and bucks when i put it in drive. in neutral it idles and revs good. any ideas as to what is wrong?

 

have you dont a tune-up recently? if not try that (plugs,wires,cap and rotor)

 

tuneup was done about a year ago. last week I put new ac delco coil,no help. what makes no sense is if I put trans in reverse, it runs fine, but in drive it sputters. Is there some electronic part that is activated in drive only that could be shorting out?

 

when was the last time u put a fuel filter in it?

 

motor mounts and U joints.

the vibration in drive and not in neutral are you Universal joints. The bucking when you put it in gear are the motor mounts...

 

i think he means at a standstill in drive, if this is true try a compression test

 

ok, let me add some more. Fuel filter was put on about 3months ago. You are right the problem occurs in my driveway, as I am afraid to take it on the road the way it shakes. I have checked ball joints and feel no play or slop in them. Also, saturday I started truck three different times and no problem. Today first time started it acted up again, I thought also of motor mounts, but it seems to me if it was motor mount it would occur every time.

 

when i have had this problem before, usually it is a loose spark plug wire, after repetedly taking them off, the connectors come loose, take each connector off and squeeze them near the top with pliers, what you are trying to do is squeeze the metal connector inside the wires to grab the plugs and cap better, it also could be water in the distributor cap, pull off the cap, wipe it clean with a rag and spray the inside with WD-40, and when you re-attatch the wire connectors use di-electric grease, the winter can play all sorts of havoc with the spark system with the freezing and thawing that occurs