So all the cool kids are doing it, and I came across the perfect vehicle to start.

To back up a bit, I couldn’t believe how easily I sold my ’98 Explorer, and the horror stories of the other “similar” vehicles the three people who came to look at it had seen. Seriously, this isn’t hard: make all the lights work, have it run reasonably well, fresh oil, properly functioning AC, and clean the shit out of the inside. Then post an ad that answers all of the questions people are going to ask, and include a lot of good pictures. It seems most people don’t get this.

I’ve been looking for fix and flip vehicles for the last couple months. I came across a 2000 S10 2wd with a 2.2l in it. It doesn’t have compression on 2 cylinders, but appeared to be decent other than that and some expected rust (northeast car). No battery, but I grabbed the jump box and found it had 230k on it. Not a surprise that it would need a head gasket at that mileage.

It was sitting at my friend’s gas station/repair garage, and he was ready to get $400 from the junk yard to scrap it. I put together a new(er) PC for the shop out of some parts laying around the office, and replaced the hinges on his laptop in exchange for the truck + towing up to my house.

So now it’s here and it’s time to dig in. I started with hooking up my manifold gauges to the AC. Empty. I purged a bit in from what was leftover in my service line, and it’s hissing from the driver’s side near the radiator. Since there are no refrigerant hoses up there, I have to assume that the condenser is bad. Also, the compressor has junkyard paint on it. So who the hell knows what is going on there. Maybe an old repair, maybe not. It also didn’t have any o rings on it when I pulled the line set off. I’ll deal with that later.

Hooked up a battery to see if there were any codes to pull. Nope. Probably been disconnected too long. It turns over and sounds OK, so I’m assuming that the timing chain isn’t broken. I’m pretty sure this is an interference motor.

So I started with this:

and currently am about here:

Let’s see what else is broken. Come and share my pain and/or triumph. We’ll know soon enough.