97 Rodeo broken, despair immense

My girlfriend's Rodeo had been cutting off intermittently lately, but I had driven it a few times with no incident, so I chalked it up to some manner of operator error. The problem got much worse, however.

Her CEL had been on for about a year and no mechanic could ever figure out why that was, despite several visits and attempts to fix it, or so she says. This was before we were together.

Last week it started shutting off enough that you really couldn't go anywhere in it and it stranded her on the interstate. I had it towed to the dealership because it was about 50 miles closer than the closest shade tree isuzu guy, of which there is only one in town that I can find.

The dealer technician called back later that day to say that the wiring harness was the culprit and it would be $800 for a new one plus 22hrs of labor. He based this on the fact that some of the wires in the engine had apparently been chewed by some sort of rodent. I said the hell with that, had it towed home, and repaired the offending wires myself.

The dealer technician didn't charge us for his diagnostic work, which I thought was awfully cool of him.

Anyway, the wires were back together, but the problem persisted.

Now I don't know what the hell to do. The tech says he's got plenty of fuel pressure, it's just one of the sensors malfunctioning, probably either the knock sensor or the crankshaft position sensor or possibly the camshaft position sensor or maybe even the chip itself.

I don't feel up to tearing the engine apart to get to the crankshaft sensor, but my girl and I are poor people and we can't really afford to fix it either. It's worth about $4500 but she has $3k left on the loan and I'm scared that this will be a $1500 problem.

Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sounds like you are on the right track. May want to wiggle/pull test each wire with the truck running & see which wire makes it run poorly or stall (if you can do it SAFELY!!!). The pre 1998 rodeos had some issues with wires rubbing on/around the transmission area. Worn spots on the wire loom make those easy to spot. Other than that, get yourself a cheap OBDII code reader & see what the CEL is all about.
G/luck
Joel

Thanks man. I love her truck, and I know those 97's are bulletproof essentially. I think that crankshaft sensor is crapping its little electronic pants. I just wish it were easier to get to.

Can you get to the crank position sensor wiring easier than the sensor itself? If you could put a voltmeter onto the sensor and crank the engine the sensor puts out a small AC current. Less than 600 mV. I'd bet the crank sensor is the problem.