Camp and cruise, 72 Jimmy 4wd Project

[bambbrose]

Hello gentlemen

Picked up a Jimmy last week and wanted to start a build thread to document my progress and also solicit feedback as I run into trouble getting her back on the road.

Some background on "why a k5/Jimmy" for me? Growing up my grandparents had a white k5, it was a 71/72 unit, which we took hunting, fishing, camping, and in general all over the place. As time went on it wore out and sat at their house. I told my grandfather I wanted to buy it when I was in high school, however a few years later in life when I was busy in college he sold it to a neighbor. I'm still kicking myself for not staying on him and reminding him that I really wanted it.

Nonetheless I've always had it in my mind that I was going to make one of my own either way since then.

Fast forward 15 years, I recall that we used to call it a Jimmy, even though it was a K5. I had it in my mind I was going to find myself "a Jimmy" as I'm partial to the looks.

I've been browsing online and the classifieds on and off for a few years. Finished building a new home last summer and started looking more seriously. Finally a 72 Jimmy came for sale and I picked it up last weekend.

Admittedly she needs some work. At some point in life she was painted maroon from her original olive green color.
Its a 350/hydro, PS, PB, AC, AM/FM, olive + black vinyl. What you see in the pictures is completely different, but if you dig around you can see what she once was.

Unfortunately, at some point it was converted to a blazer. Was this a common thing back in the day?

Fortunately for me, it has had a small front end collision, which worked in my favor as it had a lot to do with the lower price.

It has a "rebuilt" 350 with ~6k miles on it. Recently done brakes, fluids, and in general mechanically shes in decent shape. I drove it around and she has good pickup, great oil pressure, and very little blowby. The trans feels like a dog but I'm told these old TH350 eat up a lot of power before you start moving down the road.

So on to the immediate tasks:
-clean her up as good as possible
-the throttle cable is sloppy. I briefly inspected it and it looks like some plastic grommet is about to fail down at the peddle. Need to fix this.
-go through all fluids. Shes been sitting for a few years since the front end accident
-get the carb cleaned up and the choke working. Shes cold blooded right now.
-repair the front end. Source and locate original GMC parts.
-go through the wiring, particularly the lights, and get her road legal
-remove the top
-take it camping in summer 2016 original goal, new goal winter 2016

So those are the goals.

I'm going to list some of the parts I know I need just to keep a running list:
-GMC Jimmy front fenders, both sides. Found
-GMC Jimmy hood. Found
-GMC Jimmy 71-72 grille, headlights, etc. Complete assembly. Found
-Radiator core support? Found
-Jimmy front bumper Obtained from GMCPauls
-original 15x6 Jimmy 4x4 wheels, ideally 5. Found 6 of them
-GMC tailgate. Will sell the chevy unit.


and that is just the start.... I'll need quite a few patch panels for rust repair as well.


Now on to some pics.

These first 5 are how she was it the garage where I got it.

[bambbrose]

One more of the interior "as found".

Two on the trailer, packed up and heading home.

Part of this build thread will include the building a small metal shop to set up and get working on her.

Expect slow progress!

[Lieferson]

Looks like a solid start! good luck with the build, there are lots of good people on here that can give lots of direction along the way.

[jaros44sr]

Looks like a pretty solid starting point, and welcome to the boards...
First thing I would check is that the numbers match, body and title exactly.
All of the trucks use the same parts for the sheet metal front end, see if your core support has two or four headlight mounting points. There is lots of parts in the classified section, so I would start there.
Very friendly board so don't worry about asking questions, BUT, we like pictures. So, the saying around here is, if it doesn't have a pic, it didn't happen!

Good luck with your build, and I'll stay tuned

[hemi43]

Awesome !! Hopefully we'll have another build thread to follow.

[jaros44sr]

X2, since you built yours so quickly, I have very little to read every day

[tjsblazer]

I'll follow along. Looking forward to it.

[DeadheadNM]

I'm on board. Good luck w the build! I have a decent gmc tailgate here in Albuquerque when you're ready. I believe you can add the gmc letters to your existing hood.

[Chad22873]

Always interested in seeing what others are doing to theirs. I am in.

[bambbrose]

Managed to spend a few min on it this weekend
Plenty of rust now that I've poked around with the flathead. Will need some serious patchwork.

The body tag is gmc and matches the title.
Everything else is blazer. Starting to think the tub was swapped at some point.
The body tag does match the motor and options but who knows at this point...

Pics coming as soon as I can figure out why they keep uploading sideways

[bambbrose]

Got her home and took off what remained of the grille and the damaged fender.


The hood has a big enough dent that I'll need to get a new one or become friends with a body man.

The other fender also has a crinkle that is just enough to warrant looking elsewhere.

Found a bunch of replacement rockers, floor pans, etc. in a box in the rear of the Jimmy, a welcome surprise.

Started looking over everything in more detail.

The 350 has an Edelbrock Performer intake manifold, a set of headers (unknown brand right now), Quadrajet, and a few other items I need to look over.

[bambbrose]

More "as found" pics

[bambbrose]

GMC body tag right?

SPID is Chevy though from what I can tell.
The SPID matches what is on the truck. The body tag in the door jamb matches the title.

[bambbrose]

Are these cut down truck doors?

Is that a truck door panel or appropriate for a Jimmy or Blazer?

[bambbrose]

And the last two pics.

Brought in a door panel and the center console last night to give them a good cleaning. Figure I can do this while watching some TV with the wifey.

[bluek5]

Good to see that it went to a good home. I contemplated looking at it decided not to as I already have four of them. As for your question about the doors being cut down I would guess that at least the drivers side has been. There is no hole next to the wing window for the screw so the door is 71 or older. The reinforcement plate around the latch should be spot welded on also. If your Jimmy is a 72 it would have had moulded plastic door panels. Where are you in Utah if you don't mind me asking?

[bambbrose]

Originally Posted by bluek5

Good to see that it went to a good home. I contemplated looking at it decided not to as I already have four of them. As for your question about the doors being cut down I would guess that at least the drivers side has been. There is no hole next to the wing window for the screw so the door is 71 or older. The reinforcement plate around the latch should be spot welded on also. If your Jimmy is a 72 it would have had moulded plastic door panels. Where are you in Utah if you don't mind me asking?

I'm down in New Harmony, off of the Zion NP exit for the Kolob Canyon area.
4 blazers, I'm trying to figure out how to find the time to spend on one


Not much progress but here are the noteworthy items:

-found a GMC radiator support with the four headlights. Need to clean it up and swap it in. It's actually in pretty good shape, better than the one I'm removing.
-found a nice set of 68 fenders which from my research are the proper ones for a GMC.


I have some questions for you guys:

-For a 72 Jimmy, I see some tailgates that have GMC logos embosed into them, and then I see others that have the trim with woodgrain and GMC on that. Are units with trim the same as the GMC embossed ones, and the trim just covers this up, or are they "blank" tailgates?


-Rear bedside patch panels. I need basically the lower section forward of the rear tires, up to about half way through the bed. I also need the wheel arch, and then the rear lower section. On the passenger side, I also need a patch that covers from the taillight forward about 10" towards the front.
Thoughts on what parts I should be ordering? I can't tell what is blazer/jimmy specific. Is the bedside identical to a SWB truck? If no, what exactly is different?

Areas in red I need on both sides.
Area in green just on the passgener side to fix the hacked up spare tire mount.



Thanks for the help!

[Chad22873]

You can buy patch panels for all of that. Blazers and jimmys have the same bedsides but they are different than a swb truck. You can also buy the entire bedside. Just depends on how much patchwork you want to do. GMCPauls offers them and in my experience they fit very well.

[bambbrose]

Made some progress on the parts collecting front.

Picked up a mint set of GM fenders from a 68 last night. Very excited to get these going.
Also got the headlight trim rings, grill side trim, and grill to radiator support bracket.


Still need a grill and grill top trim, bumper, some lighting, and the brackets on the fender that support the grill.

Getting closer every day.

[bambbrose]

Question for you guys, does a GMC front end have these grille to fender brackets like a 69-72 Chevy front end? I assumed so but you know what assuming does...

[notsolo]

Originally Posted by bambbrose

Are these cut down truck doors?

Is that a truck door panel or appropriate for a Jimmy or Blazer?

Top of the door looks about right, but is missing holes for the caps.

[bambbrose]

No real picture updates right now, but I did stop by and pick up a bunch of paint products yesterday.

I thought about it a long time and decided to go with medium blue for the color. Going with a single stage that is closer to the OEM version instead of a modern paint. Not looking for that deep modern gloss.

I've got the front end stripped down to the firewall and will start prepping the firewall for paint from here. Hoping to get her on the road before winter hits!

[bambbrose]

11th Oct 2016

Finally an update. Got some epoxy primer on the "new to me" GMC radiator support. Also stripped the bulk of items off of the firewall and was able to get it in epoxy primer as well. Previously it was a mixture of the original green and some horrible flaking overspray of maroon.

Because this isn't going to be a full on build, but instead just a driver, I will be leaving the firewall in black. I realized that painting it in blue I would likely never get into all of the crevices the way I need to without pulling the motor forward, and I was just not willing to do that at this time. Trying to keep it as simple as possible to get this thing on the road and get the mechanicals sorted.

I have picked up some new fenders, ordered repro bumper, grill, inner fenders, and all sorts of misc patch panels and a complete lens kit. Waiting on parts for now but I think I'm not too far from being able to get a license plate on this thing.

I'm actively searching for some original steel wheels at this point. For some reason I can't find anything local and everyone online wants a small fortune. My tires are shot and I don't want to put new tires on these alloy wheels.

Regarding tires, if I get 15x6 factory wheels, I'm still planning on using 33x10.5 or 31x10.5 tires. Anybody know how these will turn out?

Ideally I would find 15x8 wheels but those seem to be quite rare.

[bambbrose]

24th Oct 2016

Making some great progress this month.
Just got all of my new sheetmetal parts in the mail from GMCPauls, great customer service from those guys. One part was just slightly bent, probably not enough to warrant full replacement, however I mentioned it and they priority mailed me a replacement, no questions asked.

Also picked up new lenses and found nearly every part I need to get back on the road. I think the biggest thing I'm missing is probably just all of the small hardware and clips for the GMC front end. Might be on the road by end of November if I keep up the pace.

Currently my big project is rebuilding the headlight harness. As you know I'm converting a K5 harness to a GMC one, with the four headlights. I found a diagram after a long time searching, only to find out that the second set of headlamps are literally just an extension of the high beam circuit. This makes for an easy harness modification.

I took the harness off and started replacing everything. Since I'm in here, I decided to replace the alternator plug which was extremely brittle and corroded. I also cleaned each plug and reapplied dielectric grease for, hopefully, another few decades of service.

I also integrated the headlight dedicated relay circuit modification, so the headlights are brighter. Good thread on this here: http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=397695


Lastly, I integrated into the harness a 40 amp fused 10 AWG circuit to a 4 post junction block for future accessory use.
I replaced all of the inline fusible links and glass tube fuse plugs with new ATC waterproof inline fuses as well. The purists here may call foul but I prefer the newer fuses.


More pictures of the finished product to come. Here is what I started with:

[DeadheadNM]

Nice progress - glad to see you refurbishing that harness. Thanks for posting.