'96 Blazer fuel pump problem

Is it possible that your gas gauge isn't particularly accurate and you have well less than 1/3 tank of fuel when this happens? You don't describe the situation other than it's a "downcline"...how steep is it? I've seen this happen with vehicles in my driveway (it's steep) with only a few gallons of gas in the tank.

Don't let the fuel pump "whir" or you will burn it out.

Yes running the tank low is a good way to greatly shorten the life of the pump. I agree that gauge may be off and you are lower on fuel than you think. I inspection of tank sending unit and pump may be in order too.

----------------- The SnoMan

hesitation, no

Pull the tank and see if the fuel pump pickup is in one piece. Sounds like it isn't. The other problem may be that the tank has been hit and that bent the fuel pick up. Either one will stop the pump from getting gas. Depending on how steep the area is it could also just be that the gas is pooling away from the pickup. The gas gauge float goes towards the front of the tank so it will read higher when the nose is down than the level actually is.

On that model truck, the pump is in the bottom of the tank as the fuel cools and lubes the pump. There is no pickup tube

It still has that plastic piece with the fuel sock stuck on it though. I have seen them come loose and float around in the baffle on the tank bottom. Also have had a few where the baffle came loose from the tank and was causing problems on off angle maneuvering. Either way the OP is going to end up pulling the tank and checking what is really going on.

I picked up a repair kit for a great price at

The fuel card at the bottom of the page fixed my sending unit.

The socks get plugged too.

The dealer wanted to sell me the whole pump module for almost 500 dollars, and this got me a new pump and sending unit for just over 100.

Im not sure if my sending unit was bad, the socks on the pumps were so clogged up that it really plugged up the works.