1972 GMC Jimmy PENNY

[lolife99]

Man,... I love this Jimmy.

[preciador6]

Nice I'm looking for a driver side fender for my K5 this og color.

[lks dcvn]

a few notes -

- replacing headlights - are you going with HIDs or upgrading the stock wiring first to remove the limitations of the stock wiring/voltage running through the headlight switch?

- removing the top by yourself may not be the best approach even if you are walking it between PENNY and your 68 bed. Grab a buddy (or two) to spread the load and prevent any damage to either truck. I have seen people use a hoist, 2 post lift, etc. to assist in the process as well.

- exhaust swap - I have used the heartthrob exhaust (can get steel and also stainless for a bit more) three times now which is a direct bolt in full dual manifold back exhaust. I have sold the trucks before I ever had an issue with the exhaust system. The system comes with mufflers that sounds pretty good. You could always swap the mufflers out for your own preference in sound.

- slop in steering - best bang for the buck is to swap to the redhead steering gear (stock or quick ratio) if yours is loose and then check all column bearings and steering connecting points to make sure there is little to no slop during turning of the wheel. I just did the swap on my 71 project and it drives a lot better. I also did the lower column bearing in the process as it was toast.

The truck looks good and it is really coming together - keep us posted on progress!

[Graham57a]

Originally Posted by lks dcvn

a few notes -

- replacing headlights - are you going with HIDs or upgrading the stock wiring first to remove the limitations of the stock wiring/voltage running through the headlight switch?

- removing the top by yourself may not be the best approach even if you are walking it between PENNY and your 68 bed. Grab a buddy (or two) to spread the load and prevent any damage to either truck. I have seen people use a hoist, 2 post lift, etc. to assist in the process as well.

- exhaust swap - I have used the heartthrob exhaust (can get steel and also stainless for a bit more) three times now which is a direct bolt in full dual manifold back exhaust. I have sold the trucks before I ever had an issue with the exhaust system. The system comes with mufflers that sounds pretty good. You could always swap the mufflers out for your own preference in sound.

- slop in steering - best bang for the buck is to swap to the redhead steering gear (stock or quick ratio) if yours is loose and then check all column bearings and steering connecting points to make sure there is little to no slop during turning of the wheel. I just did the swap on my 71 project and it drives a lot better. I also did the lower column bearing in the process as it was toast.

The truck looks good and it is really coming together - keep us posted on progress!

Thanks man,
I was just going to grab a see of headlights from the parts store, that's what I'm running on my other trucks and they do fine. I typically don't drive at night enough to be concerned about it. I'm trying to decide between doing a complete exhaust swap or just changing out the glass packs for some flow masters. The pipe is in decent shape but it's all 2" and ultimately i would wanna change to 2.5"

[Graham57a]

I forgot I had powder coated the air cleaner. It was pretty rusty so I wanted to preserve it more than anything. I also found these grease markings under the LR quarter

[briank]

Nice Jimmy, Im getting a California jimmy as well that has a similar spot on the passenger floor as well as a spot on the pass side windshield frame.Your floor looks considerably better...what did you use on the floor?

[Graham57a]

Originally Posted by briank

Nice Jimmy, Im getting a California jimmy as well that has a similar spot on the passenger floor as well as a spot on the pass side windshield frame.Your floor looks considerably better...what did you use on the floor?

Thanks man, I used a rustoleum product to seal it up. They say you can spray it directly onto active rust but I like removing the bad metal and flakes of rust at least.

[Tom Vogel]

Actually, that truck is pretty solid.

[dirish]

Great looking Jimmy, great find.

[Graham57a]

Originally Posted by Tom Vogel

Actually, that truck is pretty solid.

Thanks man, is the rust on the top of the bed rails common? I'm not used to these things so I'm not sure where to look.

Originally Posted by dirish

Great looking Jimmy, great find.

Thanks man, I think its the perfect amount of driver but nice. It cant be too nice or I'll be afraid to drive it

[Graham57a]

I did spend some time last weekend under the hood of this thing. I was battling the temp gauge and it's next to impossible to get the sender out of the head with the manifolds on so I took the opportunity to replace the manifold gaskets (It needed them pretty badly). I pulled everything apart and discovered that my heads were most likely changed at some point, the temp sender was much smaller in diameter then the factory comparisons I had. I tried to read the stamp on the block to verify the origin of the motor but it was pretty hard to read. Either way, I am leaving everything in and together.

I replaced the temp sender, ran a new wire from the firewall to the head, fired her up and the temp gauge works great. The new manifold gaskets made a huge difference and reduced the overall exhaust sound to about half of what it was. I am really pleased with how everything is coming together. I am picking up my 15x8 rallies from the sand blaster tomorrow, I am hoping to powdercoat them Thursday and would like to have mounted next week sometime.

[Tom Vogel]

[QUOTE=Graham57a;7966363]Thanks man, is the rust on the top of the bed rails common? I'm not used to these things so I'm not sure where to look.

That seems an unusual spot, but an easy fix. You really have very little to fix in the way of rust on that truck. I would be thrilled if I were you.

[Graham57a]

[quote=Tom Vogel;7967112]

Originally Posted by Graham57a

Thanks man, is the rust on the top of the bed rails common? I'm not used to these things so I'm not sure where to look.

That seems an unusual spot, but an easy fix. You really have very little to fix in the way of rust on that truck. I would be thrilled if I were you.

Thanks man, I plan on getting some ospho and spraying the inside of the rocker boxes and the back of everything I can to stop what's there from getting worse. Then I will dive into metal work to get rid of all the cancer. My short term plan is to just use that brown primer for now to blend it and seal it up but I will eventually repaint below the trim and the hood. I'm not in a huge rush tho, too busy putting miles on it

[Graham57a]

Got my steelies mounted today, I wasn't sure about white v black letters but I think I made the right choice. Definitely made a huge difference in the look of the truck, took her for an 80 mile cruise up on the parkway to end the day

[68panelman]

Looks great

[tristan]

I am jealous, thanks for sharing. I am hoping to ascend Mt. Mitchell with mine someday if I can ever get it out of restoration prison.

[lks dcvn]

Wow - looks really good! Looking for a set of white steelies or some period correct aluminum slots for mine. What tire size did you end up going with?

[Graham57a]

Spent a little time this evening cutting out the bed rail rust on the passenger side. Once I had the bad metal off I used a wire brush on my drill and a scraper and cleaned the crap out of everything to hopefully prevent this from happening again. I used por 15 on the clean metal to seal everything up where I cut out patches and then I used a flapper disc sander to remove the surface rust where I didn't cut out the metal and used a dtm primer to seal up the bare metal and then went over everything with the red oxide rust preventing primer to top it off.

I'll do the same thing on the drivers side and then make some patch panels to fill in where I cut out the bad metal, prime everything, and then put the top back on for winter

[Graham57a]

...

[Graham57a]

This is how I left it at the end of the night. I'm also gonna get a tap tomorrow so I can clean up the threads on the nutserts and make bolting the top down a little easier

[DeadheadNM]

Nice work. I'm on board. Pete

[Graham57a]

Originally Posted by DeadheadNM

Nice work. I'm on board. Pete

Thanks man, working on picking up a little mig welder now. Once I have that in the shop I'll be able to wrap up the bed rails and put the top on

[Graham57a]

Sooo a few months ago my sister came up to the mountains to spend the weekend with my wife and myself. We decided that we wanted to take the Jimmy camping so we loaded it down and drove about 1.5 hours to Hot Springs, NC. Once we got out on the interstate doing about 65 mph I heard what sounded like a thunk on the underside of the truck. Then a couple minutes later I heard another thunk. I waited another minute and didn't hear anything else so I kept on digging. Shortly after that happened we got off the interstate and were on back roads doing about 50 mph so it didn't happen again. When we got to the campground it started to pour rain so we covered up with a tarp and hunkered down hahaha.

The next morning we got up at 4:00am to head up to Max Patch to see the sunrise. We packed up camp and went to grab breakfast before heading up the mountain. When we pulled into the diner I took a look underneath the truck to see if anything looked off or out of place, couldn't see a thing. I went inside and ate breakfast and then it occurred to me, my tires are pretty old and the sound could have been one of the tires falling apart. I couldn't see anything obvious from the outside but I reached around the backside of the left rear and sure enough the sidewall was flying off in big chunks.

So we had to ditch the Max Patch plan and head back home. We took back roads and I did about 35mph the entire way. Somehow it held enough air to get us home, sit in the garage for a few months, and then I drove it to the tire store yesterday to get two new tires mounted. Since the RR was still decent I kept it and am going to order a spare wheel to mount behind the rear seat so I have a backup plan if this happens again hahah.

[Graham57a]

A couple pics with the new tires. I drove it to work after the tire store, when I pulled into the job site I had a crowd of about 10 workers around it asking me questions haha.

[towbar]

Originally Posted by Graham57a

A couple pics with the new tires. I drove it to work after the tire store, when I pulled into the job site I had a crowd of about 10 workers around it asking me questions haha.

My son works for Hanes Electric and sent me a pic of the Jimmy on the jobsite that day, so likely he was one of the crowd. Love the color and the steelies!