#minijimmygmc Wifey's 1990 K5 Jimmy rebuild

[Ski-me]

What a ton of work! Nice to see it continue to move and not Peter out....like the paint job color. Beautiful!

[Wwes]

Looks great - wish I had that kind of paint skill.

[yote1234]

looks awesome!

[chevy3100truck]

so back to the Jimmy.......
Painted the front fenders, I ended up painting them separately from the rest of the tub since because of the height of the truck (and how low the garage ceiling is) I really needed to paint the tub with them off in order to reach the center of the top of the windshield (at least that's how it seemed)

[chevy3100truck]

Had a bit of a break to go play with this with the kiddo - now that the weather is decent weekends have gotten a lot busier again lol



He did pick up his first win of the season in his second race of the year (his teammate won the first race of the year).

[chevy3100truck]

Time to spray some colour on the truck finally. Getting closer to the end of the painting, but with the biggest portion still to do - the tub & doors.

3 coats of base laid out pretty decently, I was happy with this





The clear on the other hand....... ugh..... My fault, sprayed the first coat on too light. I sprayed 3 coats in total, but between the first coat being a bit textured & a significant weather change while I was spraying changing the humidity a ton (which I think was a factor - was dry when I started spraying, probably 65F, sometime after I started it poured rain and the humidity went way up). Oh well, first time ever painting a car/truck, so live and learn. Next time will be much better.

[chevy3100truck]

So since I was not very happy with the clear, I decided I couldn't leave it as is. It's just a driver, but it has to be at least decent, nowhere near perfect, but decent.







Admittedly the sanding isn't anywhere near perfect. I spent about 15 hours on it with 1500 & 2000 grit, and probably could have spent another 10, but I really am trying to get this thing done and it doesn't have to be perfect, just driver quality.

[chevy3100truck]

So, being as I've never painted a truck, I've also never wet-sanded and polished one either lol. Luckily around the time I was pissed off about the clear Canadian Tire put their cheapo 7" polishers on sale for 1/2 price. So I bought one of those and a few different grits of polishing compound and got to work......





The first couple stages of polishing it are done on the passengers side here. It still needs another polish with the final grit to get it done. Just trying not to screw it up too bad lol.

I figure by the time I'm done the polishing on the drivers side I'll want to go back and re-do this side, hopefully I learn something by then.

[Willowrun]

Hard to tell from the pics, but what is the issue with the clear? Orange peal?

[Dads79GMC]

Great job! Taking note, I'll be painting my first truck as well. I'm literally starting from the ground up!!!! Mike

[chevy3100truck]

Originally Posted by Willowrun

Hard to tell from the pics, but what is the issue with the clear? Orange peal?

Yeah, pretty significant orange peel unfortunately. The first coat of clear wasn't heavy enough I think. I've sanded most of it out and am about 3/4 done polishing it now. Next time I'll do a better job of it lol.
Posted via Mobile Device

[rgunlock]

You'll be amazed how much better even a really crappy job with the clear will turn out after the wet sanding and polish. Hard to tell from the pictures, but it sounds like your first attempt turned out just like mine, and I think I ended up with a very satisfactory driver quality job in the end.

[chevy3100truck]

so a whole bunch of polishing later.........











Definitely not a pro, but it will have to do for now

[chevy3100truck]

Had a weekend free, so the kiddo got to hop back in a quarter midget car. Apparently he still remembered how to turn left, finished 3rd in the heat race, 2nd in the main (in a car that neither one of us had touched in about 8 months, zero practice, just new fuel, oil & tires)

[chevy3100truck]

so now that the paint is as good as its going to get for now, back to re-assembly. Dropped the engine back in it last night, now to remember how all the accessories bolted on lol. At least with the engine back in I can now check the driveline angles and figure out what sort of shims I need for the rear axle so that I can assemble all of that permanently.



Back to running quarter midgets again with my son this weekend, so might not be a lot of progress quickly.

[Dads79GMC]

Looking great!! Nice work on the paint!!! Mike

[chevy3100truck]

It's been a while since I updated this.....

Since the engine is now in, I could finalize the rear suspension and get the new driveshaft ordered - New Bilstein 5100 series shocks, ORD shock mount braces & ORD shackly flip kit. While I was at it I relocated the rear axle to get it centered in the wheelwell since the flip kit moves it forward a bit (I haven't cut off the U-bolts yet - waiting to get the driveshaft in and double check the angles again before trimming that up)



Engine accessories going on - most importantly the AC Compressor for the new Vintage Air system lol

[chevy3100truck]

Next up - before getting to the fender installation I needed to run wire looms into the doors for the power door locks being added. The Jimmy didn't have any power door accessories from the factory so I added some braided wire looms for the wiring.




Door assembly now - put the mirrors back on (they'll get replaced down the road, but they're not too bad, just a few scratches & scuffs), new door seals, window seals, door handle gaskets, mirror gaskets etc. and added new door locks since the originals were painted, and quite frankly 28 year old GM door locks can be opened with a butter knife lol




Doors were insulated with Eastwood Xmat and power door lock actuators are in along with installing the temporary door panels (painted factory ones - will eventually get some new ones being as these are a bit thrashed). Glad I went with painting the lower portion of the door instead of putting carpet on it.

[chevy3100truck]

Onto installing the Vintage Air system - pretty straightforward to get it installed inside the cab really. Only issue was that I ended up cutting one of the pieces of ductwork slightly shorter than I wanted, so I had to grab another length at the parts store (though oddly enough the other 3 pieces cut were all bang on in length and the one that was too short was really just what remained from the single long piece that came in the kit....)





I also needed to do some wiring for the remote door locks, ignition kill, remote operated rear window and the power seats. Being as I needed a few relays, fuses, and a place to mount the receiver & door lock modules, I just built a simple little aluminum panel to tuck up behind the dash mounted to the firewall. It's accessible from under the dash, but mostly hidden (you can see some of split loom covering the wires, but it won't really be noticeable - I could have hidden it all but then if I ever have to change a fuse it would be a major pain)

[chevy3100truck]

Since the engine accessories were all mounted now and I needed to complete routing the wiring, hoses, etc. I installed the rad support & front fenders.





Starting to look like a truck lol. A bunch of messing around with shims to get the fenders where I wanted them, still not perfect, but these trucks aren't exactly known for precise panel gaps & I'm using repop front fenders..... Pretty close, but not perfect.

Most of the wiring now in place as well as the new condenser & drier for the Vintage Air system, radiator, hoses etc. I added a couple of fuses for power to the Vintage Air as well as the small auxillary panel under the dash.

[chevy3100truck]

So next on the list - break in the new cam in the fresh engine.... I had a buddy drop by so that one of us could sit in the cab watching the gauges and the other could keep an eye out for leaks etc (plus having a second set of eyes if anything went south)

Luckily - other than the fact that I stupidly had the distributor out by 180 degrees (which we caught after about 5 seconds of cranking.....), it ran mint, sat at 2500rpm for 30 minutes, nothing stupid happened, no leaks, so all was good.





Then the next day..... puddle of coolant on the floor. I had intended on changing the radiator to a almost brand new one I had, but I didn't have the correct brackets & fan shroud for it (it was the 19" tall one instead of the 17" tall one), so I'd cleaned up the old one and put it in, it had never leaked before. Apparently the massive amount of mud and silt on it was what was holding it together lol. So.... a new rad was purchased & installed....

[Willowrun]

Nice work!

[chevy3100truck]

After that I had to sort out a bit of wiring - the ignition kill wasn't working. Turns out the instructions that said "ignition on power" should say "cranking on power" Two hours later of testing wires etc to figure out what was going on, I finally figured out why you could start the motor with the immobilizer on. Simple fix, just wish it hadn't taken two hours to find lol.

So the dash is all back together now with the new radio & the modified glovebox to fit the AC system




Also put on some new aluminum wheel well trim. Kind of old school I guess, but I like it, breaks up the dark paint.

[Greenlee]

Looking good!

[chevy3100truck]

so..... back to updating this

After the dash was done, I insulated the floor. I used Eastwood X-Mat for acoustic insulation (not covering the whole floor, used about 30sqft in total, no need to cover everything with it) On top of that I used a polyurethane closed cell foam that works for thermal insulation but doesn't do a ton for sound.




Then on to the vinyl floor - I'm not a fan of carpet when the top is going to be off for most of the summer, though I kind of hate the vinyl too, it's a giant PIA to install (or at least the stuff I got was - the mold doesn't really fit the front floorboards well)




It'll still relax a bit more & I might have to do a bit more trimming as it relaxes.


With the floor in, I could put in the speaker pods. Way nicer than having to make these out of fiberglass lol (and no - they aren't Nextar speakers, but I had those covers and they had a full mesh across the front so crap won't get into the speakers which are Rockford ones I pulled out of another vehicle)