Last year my 77 GMC Jimmy stopped running. I did not have time to fully troubleshoot it so it ended up getting parked by one of the barns for 7 months. Last week I towed it down to the shop and started troubleshooting.
Turns out that I had gotten a very bad batch of water contaminated ethanol fuel, which sucks because of the extent of the damage.
After pumping out the tank (36 gallons of water/gas mix), the tank sending unit was replaced, new fuel line was run from the tank to the front auxiliary fuel filter, replaces the primary and auxiliary fuel filters, replaces the mechanical fuel pump, and I had to pull the carb bowls off of the Holley and clean out a bunch of gunk from the accelerator pump (and replace the pump). The water / ethanol mix had eroded the accelerator pump boss pretty badly in the carb bowl, but I was able to salvage it.
Got it running again last night and took it for a test drive - seems to run well. Today I'll replace the main battery (it has three batteries - two for running the winch and one for starting the truck).
I've owned this Texas truck since 1985. It has a (now very tired) balanced and blueprinted 355 in it with an unusual factory cast iron version of the "Winters Foundry" Z28 302 intake manifold. Back when I lived in Texas the former parts manager for Jim Hall's Chaparral Racing team sourced the intake for me.
Here is what it looked like before I moved to Chicago in 1995.
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Unfortunately 4 years of winter salt in Chicago totally destroyed the body.
Recently Chdamn kindly loaned me his late model military trailer (and special thanks to Richard "thecarman" for providing round trip transport) so that I could try the wheels and tires out on the truck. I have 1 ton axles with 4.11's and a non-overdrive transmission, so a taller tire will be very helpful in reducing the engine RPM's, not to mention the increased off-road clearance. Chad's wheels were a bolt on and appears to clear the frame, so I foresee some of these in my future. I may have to do a little bit of clearancing on the front brake calipers, but no big deal. One day I would like to rebody the truck and have a clean looking vehicle.
Here's what old rusty looks like with Chad's wheels/tires. That's his trailer on the right side of the photo.
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It will be nice to have this back in service here on the farm. It's pretty useful for pulling some of the work trailers around, and occupies a special memory in my heart. Over the years this truck has been through almost 40 states with me behind the wheel.