Well my wife's Blazer wouldn't start for her this morning so she took my truck to work. I just went out a few minutes ago to have a look, and it started right up! It just recently developed a rusted out baffle in the muffler so it's pretty noisy atm, but it seemed like it was misfiring/backfiring all over the place, although it would idle fine. So I popped the hood to have a look, and there was half an APPLE* sitting against the back of the alternator, resting on a heater core hose.... No idea how the hell that got there, I'm the only one who goes under the hood of it and I didn't put it there. We do have an apple tree in our front yard, but it's nowhere near close to the trucks.... I assume an animal must have crawled up there this weekend with it.




So I tossed that out, and reached down to grap the throttle linkage to rev it up, and I got ZAPPED quite badly, damn near lifted me off the ground haha. My left pinky and ring finger still hurt from it, I think my wedding ring took most of it lol, although I did have mechanics gloves on.... When this happened, the truck revved kinda funny for a sec, then smoothed right out nicely.... wtf? I cautiously tried to rev it with the linkage again, and no more shock, and it revved up nice and smooth.

So, why the hell did I get such a bad shock off the linkage? It was like a shock you'd get from a coil wire..... I can't see any obvious shorts, would a plug wire shorting out on the motor somewhere cause it? All alternator/charging wires look to be fine.

Secondly, why would my getting zapped cause the issue to go away? Seems weird to me.... Maybe I've developed a superpower that lets me fix any vehicle just by touching it???!

I'm goin back out to look for more shorts in the wires and stuff, just thought I'd ask my fellow gearheads first I know it's not a Ram, but I'm thinking it's a general issue with a short somewheres, or maybe just an engine ground problem.... And fixing it will save more wifely wear and tear on the Ram


* Note: I don't think the apple has anything to do with the electrical issue, it wasn't sitting anywhere where it might cause a short etc., just found it odd to find it there and then get shocked at the same time....

 

Ok, after getting lifted a couple more times when touching the throttle linkage I found where I'm getting shocked.... The coil is right there beside the TB, and when I was grabbing the throttle, my pinky was touching the coil, causing the shock. I can touch the coil by itself while its running, but as soon as I touch the linkage I get the zap. The coil looks to be in good shape though and no visible cracks, and the wires are relatively new, the coil wire is firmly seated onto the coil, so would it be normal to get a shock? I've never gotten one from it before though.... Does this sound like the coil is on it's way out? Might explain why it works so good sometimes and then not so good others.....

 

You could have a weak ground somewhere. The grounds in rusty S-10s suck. Scratch that, the whole electrical system in a rusty S-10 sucks.

 

Pics of the wife before we help. Did you really think you could mention a female and get help without showing her off??




Take a look at it in the dark see if there is any arcing

 

haha pretty sure I've posted pics before bluebeast, go find em


So I've been meaning to go check it at night with a spray bottle to see if I can see it arcing but I keep forgetting about it.... It wouldn't start again this morning and it's pouring rain here, so that makes me think it is the coil.... Sounds plausible right? I'm gonna check out the distributor and stuff too, but that's all fairly new so I can't really see it being that.... FWIW I checked the codes on it and am getting the P0300 Random Multiple Misfires (GM's 'Death Code'), and a recurring O2 sensor code, but I'm pretty sure the O2 code is because there's a small leak at the cat flange...


I gotta get it fixed, she's taking over my truck! She's liking it waaay too much! Every day she comes home with it she goes on and on about how much nicer it is, how well it drives and handles, etc. and she likes the attention she's gettin in it from her coworkers (she works at a hospital, they all drive newer little cars) and from heads turning to see this little woman driving that big loud obnoxious truck haha.... yeah it's bad

 

Well I remembered to go out and check it out tonight, in the rain no less.... It wouldn't start all day today cause of the rain, and still won't start now. I got her to come out and crank it while I watched under the hood, and low and behold, it looked like a Daft Punk show goin on at the coil! Jumpin fire realll bad..... So that answers my question of why the hell it has been working so odd lately, thank god..... Gonna pick up a coil this weekend maybe and see what that does for the ol girl....

 

I was gonna say you won't need to spray water on it, if it's arching you'll see it lol. Hopefully that straightens it out for ya