New to me. 1998 Chevy Silverado 1500 4x4. Just took some pictures.

[DalesCarpentry]

I just bought a new to me. 1998 Chevy Silverado 1500 4x4 with a 4.3 liter motor. What are the pros and cons? I am finally going back to work and bought this truck today. It has 124,000 miles on it. The blue book on it is close to $6,000. That is in excelent condition. This one is in great condition and only has one rust spot. It is surface rust on top of one of the bed rails. It measures about 1"x5". I plan to touch it up. I figure the blue book on this one in it's condition would be between $5,000 and $5,500. I got it for $4,000. I have owned two other Chevy Silverado's. One was a 2003 1500 4x4 with the (I think) 5.3 or 5.7 liter motor and the other one was a 2003 2500 HD 4x4 with the 6 liter motor. I loved that truck!!!!!!!!!!!!! It passed everything but the gas station. The thing is when I opened the hood I was surprised and shocked. I was like where is the motor? It turns out it has the 4.3 liter motor in it and looks very punny as compared to what I am used to seeing under the hood of my truck. I drive anywhere between 40 and 80 miles one way every day to work. My last 6 liter Silverado only got around 11 or 12 miles to a gallon of gas. From what I have read on the net it looks like this one will get between 17 and 20 miles to a gallon of gas. My last truck had a 34 gallon tank and when gas hit $4.00 a gallon it cost me over a $100 to fill it up and I did that twice a week. It was killing me. When I told my wife it only had a 6 cylender in it she said well it will be better on gas then. She is right and I don't really like the trade off but if gas hits $4.00 a gallon again I might just be happy I bought this one. This truck seems to run very well and stronger that I thought the 4.3 would. I would like to hear some input from you guys and what do you think? What do you think of this 4.3 motor? Thanks Dale

[Lloyd Smale]

probably isnt going to be to powerful in a full sized truck but there good motors. I work for the power company and we had a whole fleet of s10s with the 4.3 in them and they would trade them in at about a 150000 and they were still running strong then. these were used as meter reading trucks and probably had more stop and go in a month then you do in a year. they were started in the morning and shut off at quiting time. Lots of idleing too. They replaced some of them with a batch of rangers with 4.0s in them and didnt have near the luck with them and the rangers ate about 20 percent more fuel. one problem a few had that you might want to watch for is the harmonic ballancer would shift on the crank pulley. i dont know if that as just a problem that was on a specific year but we had a few in for it. More auto transmition problems then anything but thats a week spot for chev on all there trucks but the deisiels.

[wtxbadger]

The 4.3 V6 is basically a 5.7/350V8 with two cylinders removed. The bolt pattern front and rear on the 4.3 is the same as the 5.7. I had a 92 Chevy with the 4.3 and when I sold it had 175,000 trouble free miles on it. No major repairs the entire time I owned it, just routine maintenance. Can't speak for others, but I was very impressed with the durability of the engine and the gas mileage also.

[mrbigtexan]

The 4.3 V6 is basically a 5.7/350V8 with two cylinders removed. The bolt pattern front and rear on the 4.3 is the same as the 5.7. I had a 92 Chevy with the 4.3 and when I sold it had 175,000 trouble free miles on it. No major repairs the entire time I owned it, just routine maintenance. Can't speak for others, but I was very impressed with the durability of the engine and the gas mileage also.

thats right, the same bore and stroke as a 350. good little engines. i had a '94 that had problems with the egr valve carboning up about once a month. very annoying but probably specific to the year model.

[james25889]

The engines are pretty good but i had a 2002 s10 4x4 zr2 with the automatic transmission and needed 3 transmissions to get 40,000 miles and i know of others that needed the same but i havent herd of isues in the full size truck.

[DalesCarpentry]

The engines are pretty good but i had a 2002 s10 4x4 zr2 with the automatic transmission and needed 3 transmissions to get 40,000 miles and i know of others that needed the same but i havent herd of isues in the full size truck.

I am taking the truck in Monday to a transmission place. I did buy a an extended warenty on it. It seems that when the truck gets good and warm. About half way to Pittsburgh. It shifts very hard into second gear. I can pull over and turn the truck off. Then come back 10 minutes later and it will shift smooth as silk again. Dale

[DalesCarpentry]

I just took some pictures of the new to me truck. I bought the cap for it a couple weeks after I bought it. When I bought it,it was blue. I did not have the money for someone to paint it black so I bought 12 cans of Krylon spray paint and painted it myself. It came out pretty good and has no runs in it. I paid $180.00 for the cap witch was a steal. Dale

[DalesCarpentry]

Here are 2 more. Dale