1972 GMC Jimmy PENNY

[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

[Graham57a]

...

[68panelman]

Looks great

[Graham57a]

A little parkway overlook stop

[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.

[lolife99]

I'm not a 4x4 guy,... but I really like your Jimmy!

[Graham57a]

Originally Posted by lolife99

I'm not a 4x4 guy,... but I really like your Jimmy!

Thanks Keith, I wasn't either but I'm starting to see both sides now

[SKT]

.

Good looking Jimmy!

.

[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!

[Graham57a]

Originally Posted by towbar

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!

SWEET! He should have stopped by and said hi, we do a lot of work with Hanes. What is your son's name?

[towbar]

Hey Andrew, his name is Travis, cant miss him, got a few digits missing on his right hand from a lawn mower fight when he was younger. He's a good kid, never met a stranger. He was telling me how cool the Jimmy was....I was like "why didn't you get more pics??". Glad I found the thread.

[Graham57a]

Originally Posted by towbar

Hey Andrew, his name is Travis, cant miss him, got a few digits missing on his right hand from a lawn mower fight when he was younger. He's a good kid, never met a stranger. He was telling me how cool the Jimmy was....I was like "why didn't you get more pics??". Glad I found the thread.

That's awesome, I'm sure I'll run into him out there.

I cut out the rust on the drivers side bed rail last night, got everything cleaned up and stripped down. Then applied a heavy coat of por-15 to seal it up. Hoping to start on welding in patch panels in the next week or so. Pics to follow

[Graham57a]

...a little worse then the pass side but still manageable

[Graham57a]

We took Penny on a 120 mile round trip down to Pickens, SC for a fall festival this weekend. It was a great day to get out and have the top off. Here is a little pic one of our friends took when they were sitting behind us in traffic, you can tell the dog is content

[Graham57a]

I did get a little something in the mail yesterday. I'm usually not a huge fan of front plates but this on looks right at home. Oh and the temperatures are dropping quick up here so my wife says I need to get the top on the Jimmy ASAP so she can park in the garage. I guess it's time to start making patch panels and finish the bedrails

[GAc10boy]

Such a slick Jimmy, Andrew. Like how you're tackling the important things and bringing it back to original with some cool touches.