Faults:

Inner and outer tie rods.

Pitman arm.

Electrical gremlins all over.

Smokes a lot.

Both door handles are busted.

General Comments:

Rusty, drives and runs like a vehicle with twice the miles. The ride is about like a car instead of a truck, which is good since the thing can haul about as much as a Ford Escort station wagon. Motor puffs a lot of blue smoke. The motor is a gutless little turd that can hardly get out of its own way. On the plus side, it gets about as good of mileage as a fullsized pickup with a V-8 (18 mpg). The truck has been reliable (it's only saving grace).

Being a small shortbox with a willy-nilly engine, it isn't real useful when it comes to actually using it as a pick-up. A fullsized Caprice wagon with a V-8 would be a more practical and get better mileage, with something resembling acceleration to boot.

The door handles are crap, both of them busted (a very common GM problem). Somebody ghetto-rigged a coat hanger around the inside door handle on the passenger side. One has to make sure to leave some of the wire sticking out of the door.

The driver's side window doesn't stay on the track half the time, so I wedged a water bottle between the door and the window. The water bottle method of holding up the window adds loads of class and has the added benefit of allowing a car thief an easy way into the truck. Most of the time though the door doesn't latch anyway, so one can easily just give the door a little tug and it'll open up. Unfortunately it opens up while turning right as well, so this is one truck you want to be sure to be wearing a seat belt while you're driving it.

There are a lot of lights that don't work in the truck, and the rear running lights no longer work either, so I don't drive at night if at all possible. If I do drive at night, I gently rest my foot on the brake just enough to turn on the brake lights to give the truck the appearance of having tail lights.

Other than making sure the truck is safe to drive (like replacing very worn out front end components), I plan on sticking exactly zero dollars into it.

Faults:

Digital dash quit working correctly. I fixed it with a rebuilt part I got on-line for $45.

Replaced two ball joints.

Radiator repaired once.

Body is rusted badly, however I live on a gravel road and seldom wash the truck.

Has a small electrical glitch currently. The truck will shut itself off momentarily and then recover. I believe it is a bad connection on the ECM.

General Comments:

This truck rides like a dream, although the bucket seats become tiresome after about 7-8 hours of travel.

This is the extended cab, and the jump seats are good only for young children for any length of time.

The interior has worn like iron for me. The truck has plenty of power for its size. I use it as a truck, so no pampering here. I haul my own firewood and this truck will pull a ton of scrap metal on my trailer.

I would buy a new one if it was just like this one, as I prefer the first body style over the second. I would really like a 4dr version, but, too late for that.