There are reasonably priced diag tools available - I don’t have experience with them but have seen recommendations on this forum. A search would find the discussions.
For any vehicle ~30 years or newer some level of diagnostic capability is going to be needed if you want to maintain your own vehicle. In some ways, the OBD1/ALDL on these trucks are easier to diagnose than newer OBDII stuff as they are not as complex and the mfg didn’t hide all the important data under proprietary interfaces as they do on new cars.
It can definitely be frustrating at times but it’s kind of the way of the world in autos today unless you want to only drive and maintain pre-computer cars/trucks. I have a 93 suburban I bought new and started out just trying to replace stuff when it didn’t run right. It’s definitely paid off investing in time/$ to get capability to look at diagnostic data if you want to keep one of these on the road.
Good luck!
For any vehicle ~30 years or newer some level of diagnostic capability is going to be needed if you want to maintain your own vehicle. In some ways, the OBD1/ALDL on these trucks are easier to diagnose than newer OBDII stuff as they are not as complex and the mfg didn’t hide all the important data under proprietary interfaces as they do on new cars.
It can definitely be frustrating at times but it’s kind of the way of the world in autos today unless you want to only drive and maintain pre-computer cars/trucks. I have a 93 suburban I bought new and started out just trying to replace stuff when it didn’t run right. It’s definitely paid off investing in time/$ to get capability to look at diagnostic data if you want to keep one of these on the road.
Good luck!