99 S10 2.2L engine cutting out

[bwink88]

I have owned my 2.2L 5 Speed 1999 Chevy S10 for four years now, and it has been a very dependable truck for the most part. Right after I bought it, I added keyless entry that Best Buy installed, and I installed a new head unit and a subwoofer myself, and haven't really changed anything else on it since.

It now has 120,000 miles, and I have recently moved four hours away from home to KC. On my first trip there, I had been driving for about an hour when all of a sudden I felt a slight jolt. A little further down the road, it did it again, and did it a few times. When this happened, the needle on the tach and speedometer jumped up and down a few times and then returned to the position it was at before it started acting up (it kind of put me in mind of a seismograph the way the needles moved back and fourth). Right after this episode, it happened again, and this time, the check engine light and the check abs light came on, the doors unlocked, and the truck died. I started it back up after a few minutes and it ran fine. I drove it down the road about 10 miles, and then it did the same thing again. I had it towed to a garage and they replaced the crank sensor, and the problem went away... for a while.

About three weeks later, after I had moved to KC, I was driving to work, and I felt that small jolt again. It was fine for about 10 minutes until I got into the city, and then it went into the same fit that happened before and it died. I was able to start it up again after a while, and was able to drive to a nearby garage (with it acting up a few times on the way there). They got to it after it had sat off for about 3 hours, and it wouldn't act up for them. They let it sit running all afternoon and they weren't able to replicate the problem.

When I got home that night, I disconnected the power line to my amplifier from the battery. Since I'm not as knowledgable about cars as I wish I was, I didn't know if it could be contributing to the problem. I looked the truck over really well and couldn't find anything visually wrong with it.

I have since gone about a month and a half, and i have only felt the jolt once since then, and since it was so small, it could have been a gust of wind or something paired with me being paranoid about the problem. It still has me nervous about getting stranded on the interstate, or worse, in the middle of nowhere when I go back home. Has anyone heard of someone having this problem before?



6/13/13

I haven't had any more trouble with my truck since just before I originally wrote this post back in October until today when I was driving to and from work. I think the AC has been on every time the truck acts up. Early last summer, before I started having all of this trouble, the A/C went out. I took the truck to the shop and my mechanic informed me the AC compressor has the "kiss of death" where the inside of the compressor begins to fall apart. He cleaned out the debris that was clogging the lines as a temporary fix until I could afford to replace the compressor. Is there any kind of electrical component in the AC system that could have been damaged and could short out and cause the kind of problems I have been having?