97' still dies sometimes

Well , Took it to shop last time. It sat for 3 weeks and then they say it needs battery. And water pump.It starts and runs fine now but still dies without warning , sometimes .
Was starting to think crank senser and the water pump thing makes me wonder more. So I got it down to the harmonic balancer and learned I needed those secial bolts for puller. It should be in by friday.
Hey, is it OK to get autozone or napa crank senser or GM only?And that cover don't look like screws holding it. Maybe a molded in clip. Is that another GM boobytrap?

when it dies is it a sputtering death or a system shut down roll into the next parking lot w/ no power?? my girl had a problem similar to urs and altho she has a neon it might be something to look at, when her car was dying we tried to have it read, no codes....matter of fact the reader wouldnt respond. so naturally we thought something in the computer, changed that, then the coil pack, finally took it in, found out it was a $0.20 fuse but w/ labor and towing over $200 (nice huh) then well it was all good for awhile then started dying, back to the drawing board, i personally (with only my commen knowledge) found out the fuel pump is shorting out causing a fuse to blow or just stall period and the ECG valve was no good. not saying the same thing is wrong w/ ur car im not a specialtist but it might be somewhere to start

when it dies is it a sputtering death or a system shut down roll into the next parking lot w/ no power?? my girl had a problem similar to urs and altho she has a neon it might be something to look at, when her car was dying we tried to have it read, no codes....matter of fact the reader wouldnt respond. so naturally we thought something in the computer, changed that, then the coil pack, finally took it in, found out it was a $0.20 fuse but w/ labor and towing over $200 (nice huh) then well it was all good for awhile then started dying, back to the drawing board, i personally (with only my commen knowledge) found out the fuel pump is shorting out causing a fuse to blow or just stall period and the ECG valve was no good. not saying the same thing is wrong w/ ur car im not a specialtist but it might be somewhere to start
Hey Rusty,
That is the stuff I don't want to do (this time) . Changing lots of stuff and problem still there. I've read a lot of theads lately and when it comes to this odd dying with no codes it's usually crank senser after they changed everything else. So I'm trying it first,after 3 trips to shop. They tought me that shops aren't magical cures.
Really the crank senser job not too hard. I got it off tonight and will replace in a day or 2. So far the hardest part was getting the spashguard out. And it's hard to find GM harmonic balancer puller. had to order it online, napa guy didn't know WHAT I was talking about.
Anyway, I'll post it when I know it is fixed. Thanks for responding.

Changed crank senser and didn't brake anything. Hey, thats not so hard. Opps, but the car still has orginal prob.

Changed wires too just to be sure,they getting older anyway.When I started it up it did that surging again about 1/2 way warmed up. Maybe 5 or 6 times Between 500 and2000 RPM.Then died. THought I heard some clicking around air intake somewhere. Is there a flap or air adjuster that could go nuts just at one temp? Sounded like when I played with choke on the old rototiller. Hope someone got ideas cause I don't want to start changing stuff for kicks. The crank thing was fun and learned stuff , but , except for the temp sensers that other stuff is $$$.