We have seen posts on CC recently that have told us that we don’t need any modern full size pickups and another that questioned where the regular cab pickups had gone. Well, today it went to the feed store. There are some reasons that I bought my 1991 S10 regular cab over an extended cab version – and some disadvantages as well. Being an old truck, there have also been some misadventures. For some of us this is the way to go.
By the way, the truck carried the load level. In this shot, its the ground that isn’t. I tend to be pretty easy on my vehicles most of the time but I do insist that they do the job I bought them for. In this case, it needs to carry. This vehicle was bought because it had a seven foot bed, heavy duty springs, a 4.3 liter engine, and a 700R4 transmission. All that I read says that they had the bugs worked out of the running gear by 1991. We have to keep five donkeys, a llama, and numerous ducks, geese and chickens fed. It gets real expensive to have feed delivered. My S10 used to have air conditioning but a power surge took out the speedometer and A/C clutch. Rest assured I will fix that before the Houston summer gets intense.
At 20+ mpg this has been an improvement over most full size trucks. I can reach over the bed rail with no problem. It is about the size trucks were in the ’50s. Overall, the S10, Ranger, and Dakota are probably my favorite size of truck and they can be real workhorses. I couldn’t have fit this load (which exceeds 3/4 ton) in the bed if I had a king cab.
My truck belonged to an industrial plant before I bought it with 75k miles. I have come to think that the experts on the internet have badmouthed the S10 trucks excessively. I sure wasn’t happy to have an electrical fire, but the truck does just fine. Works for me!
The later S10s aren’t bad trucks it was the 2.8 that gave them most of their bad reputation though the early 700R4 didn’t help matters.
Ah, the 7 foot bed. Don’t see that too often.
Too bad there is precisely zero trucks of this size sold today.
My 84 Ranger had the long bed (7-1/2 foot, I think). Unfortunately, the 2.8 L engine was the weak link, with the valve guides passing oil one problem, and the freakin’ carb being the second one. The twin tanks made road trips a bit easier. Did a few Left Coast to Midwest runs with it.
What kind of bus do I see in the second picture?
Hey hey hey or “hay hay hay!”. Up until Ford cut the Ranger last year, you could order an 8′ bed, but these were usually fleet order specials.
I had a ’91 regular cab S-10 for a while. 2.8 with a 5 speed. It was gutless, but it didn’t break in 100,000 km and it was a couple years old when I got it. It was a great little truck for small jobs around town and it was a torture chamber for trips over 1/2 an hour.
Prior to my employment as fleet manager, my old employer had dozens of these things.
They had thier share of electrical gremlins, thats for sure. By any chance did the trouble start with the heater fan switch connection? We had a couple meltdowns originate there.
I wasn’t sorry to see the last one go to auction, and neither were the people who had to drive them.
I’ll confirm the load weight – a typical round bale around here will easily tip 1500lb.
Every time I see one of these (or a Ranger) for sale, I come very close to looking closer… Once our house is fully remuddled, I may indeed replace the full size F-150 with something like this.
At some point, check the front suspension carefully. I owned an ’85 model some years back with the 7-ft bed and a lot more miles. Bought it from a carpenter who beat the stuffins out of it. I found that the front end was so worn that the wheels were wobbling like a grocery cart. $900 to buy it, $900 to fix it — still not a bad deal.
My first truck was / is a 1990 Chevrolet Cheyenne 1/2 ton longbed, regular cab pickup with the non-Vortec 4.3 engine, 700R4 transmission, and 3.73 limited-slip rearend.
It struck a pretty good balance between full-size utility and decent mileage. Despite being a strippo Cheyenne, the original owner sprang for a few nice options like AC, a tilt wheel, four-speaker stereo, and a sliding rear window. It still has the rubber floors and roll-up windows though.
I began restoring it a few years ago before I inherited a large sum of money which allowed me to purchase the ’02 F250 Powerstroke I now have. The Chevy now resides in the backyard of my parents’ house. I’d still drive it occasionally if the smokescreen from the worn 250,000 mile engine didn’t cause it to fail smog.
The bus is a 59 chev with a viking body. RV on inside but has been a storage room since I stopped making decent money.
I really don’t know where the electrical meltdown started but I think I know where the next problem is. TPS if, in fact, this model has one. Had to take it to town today and idled at 2k part of the time and then decided to slow down.
I think this would not be my first choice for cross country trips. I also think I would prefer a heavy flatbed but unless this suffers the same fate as Dan’s ford I doubt I’ll get one. I had been carrying the smaller round bale (about 1100 lbs) and this one became available at a bargain price. Dented my left fender inside the bed. I guess I’ll beat it out and reinforce it.
I’m pretty happy with this truck but wouldn’t have written this outtake if the load hadn’t impressed me so much. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
A good usable working ute that one bigger is not always better.
how do you transport the milk for that big muffet?
This week I have put nearly 500 miles on a 2000 GMC Jimmy SLE galavanting all over the county visiting schools and training teachers. I have come to respect the “3/4 of a SBC” 4.3V6 and 700R4 transmission. It carries me and 100+ lbs of equipment with little complaint over hilly high elevation terrain. Even traveling 75 mph down state highways I’m getting around 20mpg which is superior to the 16 to 18 I usually average with the Tahoe/Yukons that are prolific in the district’s fleet. I would much rather have been assigned a sedan but if I must drive a BOF SUV for something as mundane as “commuting” I’ll take this one with this engine/trans combo.
Hold on to that truck, Amigo. I really wanted an S10 or a Ranger longbed back when I bought a truck in 2006 but they were impossible to find used.
You *would* need a full size pickup to have a similar bed length with a King Cab. Pickups have become so car-like that many buyers choose them for daily transportation and occasional carrying. Hence the 4-seater cab. Also helps that these are the only vehicles capable of decent towing now-a-days. Sort of a modern RWD wagon with open luggage area. I find nothing really wrong with modern full-size king cab pickups, if they’re diesel and have high fuel efficiency. They’re the successor to full-size BOF wagons, and much more capable than the shitty CUV(WTF?)s, Crossovers, XOvers, or whatnot we’re getting these days.
Of course, you’d want a regular pickup for hard-core carrying, but only if you have another (or several) daily car(s), or no family, or a professional driver for the pickup.
The day after this picture was taken it had to carry a new condensing unit because my air conditioner went out. The only thing that kept that from being a real catastrophe is that I can fix them myself. Point is, whatever I need the truck just sits there, doesn’t squat much and does what I ask. I never can get over the folks that have to have the latest doodads. Guess closing in on 70 changes one’s attitude.
So, you’re Lee?
Closing in on 70 may change the way you think but it doesn’t change who you are.
Yup, I’m Lee. Not much there. Retired sailor and teacher who picked up the air conditioning trade in between. I guess we are shaped by our experiences. Sitting here on a little “farm” north of Houston. I raise Donkeys, ducks, & chickens. It’s easier to herd them than students. I expect to have this truck at about 5kmiles per year so long as it will allow me (and I can drive). I probably would have commented on this truck a lot (I already have) without writing about it – but – when I got home with this load it just seemed special.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. It’s encouraging because I just keep hearing these trucks badmouthed because the general, in general deserves it. I think this is a very good rig. It was good to read input from you and Chas that agrees with me.
Also, that was a well-sorted out combo, as you noted above.
The Turbo 700 was bulletproof after 1987, the 4.3 Vortec engine comes with a roller cam and swirl-port heads for excellent power and fuel mileage for that era.
I’ve owned several S-10 pickups and Blazers and have been thoroughly satisfied.
The 4.3 powered S-10s were damn fine trucks. I had a 90 extended cab 4×4 “Tahoe” with the Baja sticker and bed mounted “roll bar/spare tire” package.
It was one of the two vehicles that I held the longest. 8 years and better than 100k miles. I sold it to some kid that wound up grey marketing it in Mexico.
Once I made the bed useful again it never failed to do what I asked of it. The only big problems I had were that it seemed to hate the front CV joints and it loved ticking off rookie alignment techs.
I still miss that thing.
Lee: your post was enough to get me to sign up. I feel the same way about these trucks. I bought my (wrecked) ’83 S10 at an impound auction for $400 in Birmingham, AL maybe twelve to fifteen years ago or so. Mine is probably the worst of the worst as it has the 2.8 2bbl engine with 700R4 transmission. Another parts vehicle donated its front end & over the years I have run across enough junked white S-10s to finally have a monotone truck.
The engine had been replaced at some point — it it probably an ’84 or ’85 model engine and the transmission pressure cable had disconnected (scary). Amongst the piddling, parts-swapping, etc. I assume I’ve put probably over 100K on it. It occasionally slips out of OD when I have to pass someone and the engine is gutless, but even to this day, both engine & transmission appear to be in no worse condition than they were the day I dragged it home.
It’s dead reliable, cheap, & easy to work on. No computer, just one hot wire to the distributor like the “older stuff”. Below is a shot of it a few years ago with a “scoop” of gravel in the bed: probably overloaded since it has the 1000lb payload versus the 1500 lb payload (which most longbed trucks got).
A ’98-ish S10 at the scrapyard donated its think front sway bar & lower control arms since my bushings were shot and many early S-10s did not come with a sway bar. It handles like a car & I’ve already got close to 50K miles on its 14″ Tiger Paw tires — I’ve never had a vehicle that was so kind to tires before — it’s absolutely amazing.
I put another 75 miles on it this morning…to an estate auction…to Tractor Supply…to lunch….and of course the obligatory trip to the landfill to dump trash. The odometer reads 07,598 so it’s got either 200 or 300K on it by now.
The only thing that really sucks about these trucks is that GM cheaped out by welding the door hinges to the body AND the door. So if you wear the pin bushings out & oblong the hole, break out the blue wrench.
By the way, “Hi CC community, I’m Joel”
Hi Joe. Thanks for signing in. Yup, my drivers door is sagging and the mechanic down the road says there are bushings available. I’m going to have to try.
I envy you (and a lot of others) for your mechanical ability. I’m not afraid to tear into an AC system or build an electric furnace from scratch but I don’t do much work on my vehicles any more. To stove up to want to spend much time on the ground.
Hope to see you around here some more. Sounds like your S-10 might be a better subject for an article than mine. If you can write some, you should talk to Tom or Paul.
tks/Lee
Thanks for the welcome Lee! Yes, hopefully the hinge pin hasn’t started eating away at the hinge bracket itself. I suppose even if it wear the hole a little oblong…an old-school mechanic might be able to doctor it up when he puts the bushings in. The bushings are cheap which is nice!
I’ve found it’s all in what you like to do. Our 80’s era heat pump/furnace appears way more complicated than the early S-10s so I guess we’re Even-Steven there…
I like to share what I know about cars and my experiences/memories of the ones I’ve owned & have owned in the past — I have no offspring to bore so I will probably start commenting on some of these posts here. Thanks again.
OK, one more. Several years ago, I won the $400 bid at another seizure auction on a long bed ’82 S10 with 2.8 2bbl and 200 transmission — like I needed another S-10. The TCC was out due to a bad pressure switch so I had a lighted toggle switch on the dash to control my “fake” 4th gear 🙂
The transmission was very adequate for the truck although not having the overdrive limited the reasonable cruising speed by about 10mph…it was happy right around 65mph. A transmission expert informed me that by ’82, GM worked out most of the bugs in the later 200 transmissions & they ended up being quite reliable. The shift points were better and the gear ratios of the lower gears made it much smoother than the jerky 700R4 in my other S10.
This truck was definitely a stripper — it was only orded with 2 options: the 2.8V6 and the auto trans. No power steering, brakes, tinted glass, gauges, rear bumper or radio. The lack of power steering made the truck a bear to drive.
The rear bumper in the below pic was dealer-installed. The trim rings were added by the PO and I added the larger black mirrors because both itty-bitty base equipment mirrors were broken.
“I have come to think that the experts on the internet have badmouthed the S10 trucks excessively.”
I think the big knock on the S-10 is that GM never really put too much (or any) effort into improving it, save for the switch from 60-degree to (vastly superior) 90-degree V6 somewhere along the way. It started out as an “OK”, not great, little truck in the early 80s… went through one major restyle and several painfully obnoxious “X-TREME” limited edition issues and still had the same flimsy, chintzy build quality when it went out of production over 20 years later!
IMO, people only gripe about the S-10 because as a new consumer product – it was a joke. I pretty much feel the same way… there was no reason GM should have sold as many of these as they did. On the other hand, as a cheap, used work truck I think it’s fantastic and most would probably agree. The 4.3l/700R4 combination is superb and that’s really all that matters when you’re spending <$2k, which nearly all of these are worth now.
It still wouldn't be my first choice in the category, but I'd gladly buy one of these at this point… I just don't really understand why any of them made it off the dealer's lots when they were new.
I’m missing my old Mopar minivan and the ability to remove the seats and carry 4×8 plywood sheets inside a raintight, lockable enclosure.
I doubt anyone would even see this post as this is a very old thread, but. I was looking for an image of hay on an S10 to show a friend a representation. This is about half what my dad used to haul back to our house for our horses. I need to find the picture if it’s still around. He of course had the suspension upgraded to handle the load. It was about half alfalfa bails and half straw. We had the stacking pattern down to a science with the height double the height of the truck and hanging over the sides about a foot. Occasionally he would let us kids climb up to the top and lie down during the ride. We were so far up people couldn’t see us unless we raised our heads to look around.