I have had the truck a little over a week, yes always 93 octane. Things I have done to the truck :

1. ATF flush
2. Oil Change
3. New Air filter
4. New bosch platinums
5. New spark plug wires
6. New fuel filter
7. Cleaned IAC motor
8. Repaired burnt VSS harness (laid on the exhaust)

I am still hunting down and cleaning electrical connections, tomorrow I am going to try and clean every ground wire I can find.

 

I will have the battery and alternator tested hopefully tomorrow spike555, thats a good point if they are both going bad in regards to spark.

 

Hate to see you throwing money at it. Could be a bad coil too I suppose. Dont know how to test that though.

 

I read that tech article regarding the VSS on www.discoweb.org , sounds really familiar about the bucking and surging that guy was experiencing and lack of upshift. I think tomorrow I am just going to bite the bullet and drive that devil to autozone to have the CEL read. I really like the truck and thank god I practically got it for a steal of a deal. It is epsom green with a 1.5 inch old man emu lift kit and nitro charger shocks. NEW PAINT clear title and cold AC. The truck is starting to be an obsession. Its awesome!

 

This morning we drove to autozone to have the CEL read:

P0326

Knock sensor condition.

I dont know much about knock sensors, I assume they detect detonation and retard timing ? Could my collapsed lifter/ worn lobe be fooling the knock sensor? It bucked and surged the whole way back home, could a faulty knock sensor make the truck do that?

 

from the sounds of it, You need to have your heads re-worked. If it has been run on regular fuel, it will carbon up. The 96 did not have carbon cutters on the valves, so they will burn and stick. It could be a bad lifter/worn lobe on the cam as well.

If you have the time and capability, pull the intake and valley pan and check it out. See how much sludge you have in there and check the cam lobes. You can pull your rocker shafts off and clean them to make sure you are getting proper oilflow. Then you can move on to pulling the cam and heads from your inspection.

I am leaning toward a bad valve on this one....

 

DO you know for a fact that you have a collapsed lifter?
I do not know if a bad knock sensor could cause this or not. If the codes says so then I would try that before I replaced the lifters.

 

Is it usually an exhaust valve vs an intake valve? As far as the cam goes, do they get worn often? A bad valve/cam lobe/collapsed lifter can trip off the knock sensor?

 

It wouldbe a exhaust valve.If you use the wrong gas then you get incomplete combustion and then you get ecessive carbon deposits on the exhaust valves. And once they start they just stick to one another like glue. Continued use iof the wrong gas will compound this.
Now if you have always used premium but the previous owner did not you may have bought their problem too.
But, I think that I would still try replacing the knock sensor first, I think it would be cheaper/easierthan a valve job.
If that doesnt do it then I would do the valve job.

 

do an induction cleaning and throw some 44K in the tank. Just a start, but the Seafoam can make it past your exhaust valves and knock off a little. Start there...