no start, again

So one night last week when I left for work I made it about and half mile when I realized I forgot something and turned back and headed home. I pulled in the drive way, shut the car off, ran it came back out and the truck wouldn’t start. Not completely unexpected. Every so often after driving short distances and shutting the truck off it sometimes won’t start up without a jump or I get a rough start. So I take out my jump pack, hook it up and as usual it starts right up. No biggie. I back out and begin to drive away and around 5 mph the thing bogs down. It seemed as if I was driving with the parking brake engaged. SO I pulled over, released the brake and began to go again, same thing. Seeing how as I was already running a little late I decided to just back it up, park it and take the other car. So I put it in reverse and the same thing happened. Finally got it parked, revved the engine and got a hesitating/sputtering/whatever you want to call it somewhere around 1500-2000 rpms. Not having time to mess around I just shut her down and left. When I came back, and still today, I found that now it won’t start at all (normal jumped nothing) Cranks but won’t start up. I am off the next 2 days so I was going to go out and take a look at a few things and see if I can get it going but I could use some tips on what to look for. I know the tank is about half full, fuel filter was changed over the winter along with the cap and rotor. Plugs and wires were done this spring. I can here the fuel pump coming on when I turn the key but I haven’t hooked up any gauges to check pressure. I checked all the fuses in the panel and all checked out ok. I did not have any idle problems and there didn't seem to be any kind of problems during any other drive leading up to this. It was recently on a 650 mile round trip from St Louis to Chicago and probably got twice as much use in August as it has in any other month this year. As stated above it even started up fine and drove away fine that very night. This seemed to be a very sudden thing.

I figure I am going to poke around for a day or two and if it is not running by Wednesday afternoon I will have it towed to he shop. Any help you guys could provide is greatly appreciated.

It is a ’97 Blazer, V6 4wd.

Thanks.

Got gas in the tank?
Check fuel pressure.
Is it losing pressure or losing spark to all plugs when it quits?
If engine is not cranking over good check battery and starter and charging system.
Check all battery cabels and grounds.
Any check engine lights?

There are two things , as MT mentioned, that need to be checked. First,the charging system/ battery should be checked to make sure they are putting out/holdig the proper voltage. If that checks out, you do need to put a fuel pressure guage on there and see what your getting.

It sounds like your fuel pump is weak or there is a restriction in the system. It could be weak as a result of a poor charging system. Putting the booster pack on the system brings that extra voltage required to bump the pressure up to where the truck can start.

Let us know how it goes.

Well it's running again. I took a look yesterday afternoon and when I disconnected the plugs from the dist. cap I noticed that the #1 wire and its plug on the cap were both in pretty rough condition (orange powder on the inside of each, rust?). So I went out picked up a cap, rotor and after driving 30 miles from parts store to parts store I finally found a replacement wire, at the dealership 2 blocks from my house. :lol: For $36. :banghead: Got everything installed tonight, cleaned up the connections on the battery/alternator and got everything else back together and she fired up right away. It was a little rough at first but calmed down and idled and drove smoothly after that. I do have the SES light on the I am going o check out tonight or tomorrow to find out that is all about and I am going to check the charging system and fuel pressure still to make sure everything is fine there. I'm a little surprised it got to that point with no warning. Unless I just missed them.

Oh well, fixed for now.

Thanks for the help.