A friend of mine has a '97 S-10 he got from a customer of his for free about 8 years ago--it was used for contractor work,mostly roofing,and always had a full bed of tools,or roof shingles in it all its life...had well over 100K on it when he got it,with a toasted clutch--has the 2.2 4 banger and a 5 speed..
He spent 400 bucks for the complete clutch setup including the new master & slave/throwout bearing,and he found a nice bed for it the same color for 200 bucks one day at a junkyard while shopping for other parts..he could have lived with the original,but it was dented up pretty badly...
Since he has owned it,he has put about 25,000 miles on it with no issues at all...the engine has always had a weird lifter type noise,as does many of those do,he says Cavaliers used a similar version of that engine and were always noisy,so he just ignores it..
The fuel gauge stopped working shortly after he got it,so he just tops off the tank every weekend so he wont run it out of gas--he says he often drives it 100+ miles in a weeks time,and jokes it "gets such good gas mileage I think it MAKES gas!"...often the pump shuts off at the gas station after only adding about 8 bucks worth of gas...
I looked at a few S-10 4x4's and Blazers awhile back I could have bought at scrap price that were really rust free,but needed work on the engines (like the "fuel spider" in the V-6 ones that costs 400 bucks),or a
transmission...after helping to install a starter in a V-6 one I decided they sucked to work on,we practically had to jack the motor halfway out of the chassis to get it out after removing it...the frames on them look incredibly rugged considering the size of the vehicle...
I'm not a huge fan of torsion bar suspension though,so I decided to pass on them..the V6 ones dont really get much better gas mileage than a full sized pickup with a 4.3 either,I'd just assume have a bigger truck if that's the case..
