Top 20 1996 Chevrolet Express Questions & Answers

This is most definitely ignition related or fuel injector related.

It is under the hood on this truck.

No, the catalytic convertor does NOT sound right.
Normally with a random misfire a tune up takes care of it. What has also caused a misfire on those early motors is the popet injectors. They were prone to having problems and have been updated back around 2000 or so. But usually its a cyclinder or two or three or... misfire. All popets going bad is unlikely.
Might try changing the fuel filter and maybe checking pressure. Just the key on pressure should be 60-66psi. While running it may be around 60 and a snap of the throttle will make it rise to 65 or so.

Hi, black smoke means your fuel mixture is running rich. You need to fix the fuel mixture if this is a carburetor engine you need to adjust or replace the carburetor. If this is fuel injected you must check the O2 sensors, fuel pressure, and computer sensors to fix the problem

You should find it on the engine side of the fire wall, passenger [RH] side down low near the bottom of the wall. Usually it's a small, short open ended hose about 3" long. Can be difficult to see and is most likely plugged with debris which can cause water to drip on the passenger side floor when the a/c is on.

Just the upper in take will have to come off,

to find the draw Switch off all electrical loads such as lights, radio equipment, auxiliary equipment and make sure the vehicle ignition system is turned off. Remove all ground paths from the negative battery terminals. Connect a jumper lead from theground cable to the negative battery terminalYou are now feeding the electrical current requirements of the entire vehicle through the jumper lead. Do not activate any other electrical equipment while the jumper lead is supplying the vehicle current. Wait five minutes to allow all electrical devices to shut down and go to standby mode. While waiting for the vehicle electronics to go to sleep, set up a digital ammeter, such as the Fluke 88to read amps (automatic scale) and make sure the test leads are plugged in to the correct connectors to read amps (COM and A). Connect the COM ammeter lead to the negative battery stud and the positive lead to the connected ground cable After five minutes with the jumper and the ammeter connected in parallel, remove the jumper lead from the three connected cables to the negative battery stud as shown in Figure 3. The vehicles entire current requirements (parasitic load) will now be going through the ammeter. Read the current flow in milliamps. Remember that 1000 milliamps is equal to 1 amp. If the readout has ma after the reading youre measuring milliamps, if the readout has A after the reading youre measuring amps. If at any time during this process the current flow is interrupted (a connector falls off) you must begin again with the jumper connected for five minutes before attempting to remove it leaving the ammeter passing all current and measuring the parasitic load, Under normal conditions, while parked, a vehicle equipped with a standard electronics package should be drawing less than 50 milliamps. If the parasitic load is more than this the vehicles battery storage life will be shortened. If excessive current draw is observed, remove the fuses one at a time until a significant current drop is noted. Do not pull and reinstall the fuses as this may wake up some circuits and cause excessive surge current through the meter. Make note of fuse locations as they are pulled so they can be reinstalled in the proper fuse panel location when testing is complete. When high current draw devices are isolated consider relocating their power feed from a power source that is inactive when the ignition switch is turned to OFF. Sorry So long but hope it helps

I would chech the ingition module inside the distributor. It's a little black box on the bottom(inside). I'm assuming you have the correct fuel presssure coming from the fuel pump.

You can go to www.alldatadiy.com to find the information however when you do a change over yo will have to change the emergency brakes as well as the master cylinder and you may need to change the lines comming from the splitter. You can go to a junk yard and look at both to see if you want to do this but it won't be cheep. The master cylinder will cost about $100.00 and the spindles with rotors and pads will cost about $300.00 plus all the conversions needed to make it work. if you need more detailed information to make it work let me know.

sounds like you need a brake job

Dont ever spray strting fluid in a gas engine you can ruin the rings.MAF is probably bad.

Look for the accumulator(silver can a/c lines go to) on the passenger side of engine area. The Low side charging port cap should be on the side of the accumulator.

oxygen sensor

You can unscrew the remaining part and top bottom will drop down through fender. A new one will just screw together as well. Easy fix.

try this site...

http://www.championtrailers.com/4%20pole%20wiring%20dia.pdf

The air conditioner turns on even when you don't use it. Like anytime you have your defrost on, it helps dry the air inside of your vehcile. So by letting the leak continue the clutch turns on then off on then off over and over instead of just kicking in and staying on. Yes, if you don not fix the problem it will continue. I wish I had better news for you.

Stan

with the ignition in the "off" position get a test light and touch one wire at a time while cycling the ignition switch to the "on" position, When you see that the test light goes off when the ignition switch is in the off position then you found the hot wire, make sure you dont hook it up to the "alway hot " wire or you might drain the battery hope this helps.

go to www.the12volt.com

The rear fan fuse is located in the engine compartment on the drivers side to the bottom right of the master cylinder there is a black cover, its right in there it should be a 30 amp fuse, if you flip the fuse cover it will tell you where it is. hope it helps, but if it blown look into the fan or the switch, it blew because of a reason.

I would suspect a broken spring. When a spring is broken either the front or rear, or even the hold down spring, it can cause things to slap around rather than move back into position smoothly. It might be a rear suspension problem also. Maybe a bad bushing or loose bolt. Have it looked at by a mechanic soon. It is always better to take a few minutes for prevention than it is to take a few weeks to heal from an accident. had a Ford Aerostar that did this and I discovered that the Emergency brake had been stuck on and when I used the brakes it would clunk because the of the extra pressure put onto the drums.