Hey guys, I just bought a 95 tahoe for $800 off craigslist. It isn't running right now and the guy is having it towed to my house for me this morning. If I'm lucky it won't be anything major, but as I have no experience working on these trucks I was hoping to get some pointers on where I should start.
just bought my fist tahoe
- Thread starter will
- Start date
Disclaimer: Links on this page pointing to Amazon, eBay and other sites may include affiliate code. If you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.
Done Deal DR
Full Access Member
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2010
- Posts
- 215
- Reaction score
- 0
Good luck...
95BlackTahoe
Full Access Member
This is the 3rd person to get one for $800...lol Myself included...
Shawn
Shawn
Alright guys, so the guy I bought it from finally got around to towing it too my house, but it was so late I didn't have much time to do anything. I did try to jump it, and after letting it charge for a few minutes I tried to start it but it just made a clicking sound and all the interior lights that I had turned on went out. I took off the grounding cable, and when I put it back on all the lights came back on. I let it charge a while more and tried again but got the same result. Also, the battery does not seem to be holding a charge, as even after changing for about 10 minutes, the lights turned off immediately after the jumper cables were removed.
I looked at all the fuses and I noticed the "crank" fuse had a size 20A rather than the size 10A that it is suppose to, but I'm not even sure what this fuse is for. After I pushed it in to the garage, I remembered that if the NSS is bad then simply shifting to neutral will allow the car to start, so I guess I'll try that tomorrow and if I'm really lucky it might work.
Anybody have any suggestions about what might be going on?
And Shawn, what year is yours? Have you had any luck getting it up and running? I'm assuming it had some problems if you got it for $800.
I looked at all the fuses and I noticed the "crank" fuse had a size 20A rather than the size 10A that it is suppose to, but I'm not even sure what this fuse is for. After I pushed it in to the garage, I remembered that if the NSS is bad then simply shifting to neutral will allow the car to start, so I guess I'll try that tomorrow and if I'm really lucky it might work.
Anybody have any suggestions about what might be going on?
And Shawn, what year is yours? Have you had any luck getting it up and running? I'm assuming it had some problems if you got it for $800.
01HDtahoeNJN
Shredding Gnar Daily
Battery alternator starter obvious places to check first
Ok so I finally got a chance to work on it this weekend. I took the battery, alternator and starter to advanced auto and I ended up needing a new battery. After I got everything back in I tried starting it but it just made a clunking sound like the engine just wouldnt turn over. I couldn't get it to turn over manually either so I took the spark plugs out thinking gas may have been leaking into the cylinders but still couldn't get it to turn over. I drained the oil and there were only like 3 quarts in it and it was completely black, so I'm thinking the engine might be shot. I'll probably end up taking it all apart next weekend to see how bad it is. Are these engines usually pretty hard to turn over? I know in my Volvo it doesn't take much effort at all.
95BlackTahoe
Full Access Member
Mine was a simple case of a rear end replacement and a tune up. I have yet to do the tune up, going to summit and getting all the msd stuff...Decided to do her right. It's a 95, by the way.
As to yours, sounds like it could be the engine, especially if it wont turn with the plugs out. Either way, a engine swap is not too bad on these as there is plenty of room, and you can get a engine out of the yard fairly reasonable. When its all said and done, you still have a nice truck.
Shawn
BattelWagun
Full Access Member
Welcome to the forums! And congrats on the truck!
Unless the Volvo is of similar displacement and compression, there will be a difference in the effort required to turn it over, but if you have the proper equipment, turning the engine over should be a piece of cake. As for the engine not turning over and the oil being somewhat low and black, those aren't very good signs. It sounds like there may be a bad sludge problem, the motor may have even locked up from oil starvation if the pump went out or something of that nature. Thats worst case scenario though. take off your passenger side valve cover(the easier of the two to remove), and see what it looks like under there as far as how the valvetrain looks.
Some other common tahoe issues:
1)Check the antifreeze for oil and vice versa, intake gasket leaks are very common in these trucks. The OE coolant was acidic and ate through the gaskets, it also reacted badly with the silicates in normal antifreeze, creating major issues.
2)Check the quality of the spark plugs, the color/condition of the plug can tell you a lot about your engine
3) make sure your starter is fully functional, I know its obvious, but hell it beats chasing down some mythical engine gremlins for days when in reality the motor is fine.
4)Once you finally do get the pistons pumping, do a compression test. I highly recommend it, a compression test can tell you a lot about the condition of the engine, dead cylinders, cracked heads, and bad gaskets. You will find that most of us on here resort to a compression test to sort out most engine issues that deal with the combustion chamber performance on an individual basis.
Good luck man, post back and let us know how it all works out.
---------- Post added at 09:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:58 PM ----------
edit: and yes as 95blacktahoe said, an engine swap usnt that hard of a job, and will most likely serve you quite well in the long run.
Unless the Volvo is of similar displacement and compression, there will be a difference in the effort required to turn it over, but if you have the proper equipment, turning the engine over should be a piece of cake. As for the engine not turning over and the oil being somewhat low and black, those aren't very good signs. It sounds like there may be a bad sludge problem, the motor may have even locked up from oil starvation if the pump went out or something of that nature. Thats worst case scenario though. take off your passenger side valve cover(the easier of the two to remove), and see what it looks like under there as far as how the valvetrain looks.
Some other common tahoe issues:
1)Check the antifreeze for oil and vice versa, intake gasket leaks are very common in these trucks. The OE coolant was acidic and ate through the gaskets, it also reacted badly with the silicates in normal antifreeze, creating major issues.
2)Check the quality of the spark plugs, the color/condition of the plug can tell you a lot about your engine
3) make sure your starter is fully functional, I know its obvious, but hell it beats chasing down some mythical engine gremlins for days when in reality the motor is fine.
4)Once you finally do get the pistons pumping, do a compression test. I highly recommend it, a compression test can tell you a lot about the condition of the engine, dead cylinders, cracked heads, and bad gaskets. You will find that most of us on here resort to a compression test to sort out most engine issues that deal with the combustion chamber performance on an individual basis.
Good luck man, post back and let us know how it all works out.
---------- Post added at 09:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:58 PM ----------
edit: and yes as 95blacktahoe said, an engine swap usnt that hard of a job, and will most likely serve you quite well in the long run.
Last edited:
