I'm an s10 fan boy I've owned both 2.2l and 4.3 models and drive a s10 blazer daily with 269,000 on it. Those motors if taken care of are bullet proof. My last s10 was a 2.2l that got the craps kicked out of it for 10 years 5 of which where firewood hauling weekly. I wasn't easy on the old girl... It sold with well over 250,000 miles on it. Love them trucks low maintenance and very capaple. This one is a 2.2L good gas miliage here I come again. It also has a performance rebuild with rpm drop down transmission with 5000 miles on it installed. My buddy didn't want it anymore and it was taking up space so over to my place for some work Uhaul $54 for 24 hours! Dang good price and one beefy trailer... It can hold a 7500lb car! I think my gmc would get 5 gallons to the mile with a load like that!
I had an s10 blazer and a s10 pickup and loved them both. I really liked driving my pickup it was a manual transmission I thought that was probably a rental trailer. When you get her fixed up that will be better driving to work the pickup is lighter .
In my personal experience with family and friends that have had, and still have 4.3 s10's and s10 blazers ( and a few 4.3 full size), only 2 made it over 100k without catastrophic failures. In all the cases I've seen ( probably 30 in all, one aunt and uncle have 4 s10 blazer 4.3 variants) they either run for up to 400k and burn a little oil, or don't burn any and don't go either much past or not even to 100k. So, IMHO, its good this one has a 4 cylinder.
I had a '92 S10 that was lifted on 33"s as a teenager that might have gotten me into some trouble which was followed by a '98 Blazer that was sweet but just didn't fit the needs as I was commuting over 100 miles a day.
My first truck was a 97 zr2 s10 with the 4.3. It was a great truck till about 90k. I would come out in the morning to start it and it would be dead. Would jump it and it was fine for a few days then it would be dead again. Then it started just dying on the interstate. That happened twice and it was gone.. To this day I don't know what the deal was with that truck.
I'm a big big fan of anything GM , they provided me with pretty good life for 32 years , and keep putting money in my bank account every month