Warlockk

You know I usually am not much of a hater. I generally consider myself a car guy more than a Ford guy. But working on this '88 Chevy S10 Blazer and rebuilding the engine has just really made me appreciate my truck. First of all why must Chevy hide the distributor in the back and under the dash. Its a pain to set the timing. Let alone on an old points car. Second this v6 has so many brackets trying to hold the accessories on to the front. There are brackets attached to brackets that hook to brackets. And all of it hangs on the aluminum front cover and water pump. I've never seen any ford engine with this kind of damage. The electrolysis on the aluminum was so bad the water pump disintegrated, the passages were clogged and it ate a 1/4" hole clean through the intake manifold. And speaking of that who makes an intake manifold that you can actually install backward! That was an hour wasted. I won't even get into the 81 Corvette I have been restoring. All that money and only 200 HP? And no back seat or cupholders. If I recall correctly you could still get a cobra with around 250 HP for less money. And you can still get parts for them without selling your children. Not to mention a real dual exhaust not a pretend one.

unit505

They were a pain to work on and had their faults. I hated my '94 Astro, but my first Chevy Experience (Daily Driver) was my '85 Safari Delivery. 4.3l "W", 4bbl, 200hp in a 111" wheel base go cart that weighed less than 4K lbs unloaded. There was no better "Sleeper" on the road from a factory at the time, if ever. Having a factory 4bbl vs. EFI was freakin' awesome!

I feel all your pain with the S-10. GM had so many aluminum sensors in the cast metal that corroded and disintegrated and getting to them when they failed was a nightmare. We used to have the S-10 Assembly Plant here in Shreveport and I've seen every variation from the electric S-10 to the CNG to the full conversion packages. I used to laugh at the S-10 with the GM motor and Isuzu Tranny and the Isuzu Hombre with the Isuzu Motor and Chevy Tranny. The Isuzu Tranny was better anyway.

Rusty but trusty

Try working on a Cadillac!!!! Sideways V8, super fun.

f150cam

blazers are throw away vehicles, my friend is a mechanic and he just buys them, drives them till they blow and scraps them. said they aint worth the effort to pull the engine and put a new one in, he would rather take the $1500 loss.

Brandon587

I would just rather not buy them if that's the case.

Brandon587

To be fair though, my friend has a 96 silver ado with the 350 in it, and it has just over 600,000 miles. The cool thing is, original engine and tranny and it still runs good. Slow to start, i can only assume its a bit low on compression now. But then I have another friend with an 88 gmc pickup, only 200,000 miles, and it's been through 3 transmissions. Now, it was his dads first new truck, his older brothers first truck, and now his for 3 and a half years. It burns oil, but still kicks around and has had a hard life. And yet another friend with a 88 gmc pickup, tranny went out at 200,000 miles, and now it's at 280,000 miles on original engine and it runs nice. And we had a 25 th anniversary vett, it wasn't a speed demon but it was pretty quick. It was nice and fun, and personally I think the old stingray looked much better than an old mustang.

dr_bowtie

they all have their advantages and disadvantages.... it's kinda bad for us chevy guys when we hear a Ford guy put a manifold on backwards when you could easily see the Distributor hole in the manifold and the rails are different front and back LOL sorry man couldnt resist...

its no different than a ford... you could technically install that manifold backwards as well.. but the Thermostat housing ALWAYS faces the front of the engine... just so you know LOL

the bad thing about GM is in their infinite wisdom started to promote the use of Plastics as do other makers and say it is to help cut down cost...

in the 90s they made the Distributors out of plastic.... yes the actual distributor housing and it cost $300.00 to replace and they break very easy and the Aluminum old school ones cost 40.00 lol not a great idea...

Buick V6's are the first ones to use a Composit intake manifold and their FI regulators would rupture causing a backfire on cranking and the manifold would explode into bits... the cool thing is that it would explode and they all blew the flame out immediately (luck) but man i replaced more of those than anything...

mattbarron94

Im a believer in taking care of a vehicle, and it will take care of you. Most of the time its not the vehicle, but the driver. If you do routine maintenance like you should on a vehicle, and never take shortcuts, Every vehicle should have NO problem reaching 200,000 Miles.

Rusty but trusty

AMEN my man AMEN

Warlockk

That's the thing man, there was no distributor hole and no rails. The amassing design on this 2.8 L was the manifold made up part if the heads fitting under the valve covers. A wonderful design for creating leaks and weak points. The way I noticed was that I realized the thermostat housing didn't belong in the rear. But on the 302 there is really no way to drop the manifold on. The bolt holes won't line up for one thing and the front and rear seals won't line up. Not to mention they mark it front for good measure. I only hope the V8 is better designed. Today's madness continues as I waste hours trying to mate the engine and trans just to find out that our engine rebuilder decided to add a pilot bearing for a manual on an engine for an automatic. This one I can't blame GM for but after we finally got the busing out ( which we had no tool for ) my boss saved the bushing and bolt we used to pull it and plans to take it to the rebuilder and shove it in an uncomfortable place. At least its nice and lubed up.