Ok, here’s the situation. I have a 1986 Chevy s10 pickup 2WD automatic with 115,000 miles on it that I drive occasionally. For about a year now the pickup has been dying on me approximately one second after I step on the gas after stopping at a stoplight, stop sign, a crosswalk, or just to let a gaggle of geese cross the road. The result of this is that everyone in the pickup lurches forward into their seatbelts as the power disappears and we have to coast, or limp at a very, very rough 100 RPM or so, to the curb. Then I have to turn the pickup off and restart it and it usually starts back up and runs perfectly for a while before it does it again although once in a while I have to start it up two or three times before it will run well. This makes taking left hand turns across a lane of oncoming traffic after coming to a stop especially exciting. One more odd thing about this problem is that it only happens after the pickup is very warm, and has been driven for 45 minutes or more. I took the pickup into a local shop and although they experienced the problems, they could not diagnose what was wrong. Unfortunately after I got the pickup back from the shop it died 3 times at stop signs on the way home and once in the middle of a road as I was driving without stopping, so the problem is getting worse! The shop told me that they think it is probably a problem with the ECM, which gets extremely hot—too hot to touch, but they couldn’t be 100% sure because only an authorized GM dealer has the machine to test an ECM. The authorized GM dealer wants to charge me 87 bucks just to diagnose the problem, on top of a $300 new ECM, if that is the problem, as well as labor—the truck is 21 years old and I don’t have an extra 500 bucks to spend on it. So I am asking you, car geniuses, what do you think? Is it the ECM? If so I can buy one from a junkyard for 70 bucks or so and install it myself (it’s just unplugging a wire harness right?). Or is it something else? Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

 

You can get a rebuilt or new ecm from auto zone or orielys for around 80 dollars.

 

install with a new pickup for you...i have my chervolet pickup overhead racks just installed for about two months ago...it expands the cargo carrying capacity of my pickup..made with aluminum base rails that can be mounted on the existing stake holes..