1994 GMC Jimmy - The RHSC

The red headed step child needs a 'resto' thread




It has the 4.3 CPI with ~224K kms on it. So far I've put a windshield in it, new headlights, fixed the y-pipe (and manifold studs), repaired hacked fixes on the front brakes (they left a nail in the flex line...) and a fuel line, replaced the shoes in the rear and parking brake cables, pitman and idler arms, swaybar endlink bushings, and a DS motor mount. I'll add some more pics when I get a chance.

Question for you folks - when the tranny is in park the wheels still roll freely. It's almost like park doesn't engage. All other gears work fine. Any thoughts?

Nice first gen !!

As far as the trans it probably has a broken parking pawl.  Some one jammed it in park when rolling.

That is much more red than the night shot made me think. RHSC it is!  Quite the progress so far and looks like you have a crack free dash? Always a good score on that.

I wonder how extensive the parking pawl fix is, maybe I'll look into it.

I've been driving it for a few days now and it's working great. The starter is still a bit loud and the wipers are super slow until the truck gets warmed up but otherwise all is well. We've had a pile of snow over the last week and are supposed to get another 18" or so tomorrow - the 4wd is nice.

I think it's the same red as my old '93

Ha! That's almost the exact same truck I had as my first car. Bright red long bed. It was a '91, but not too much changed in those 2 years.

This is why I wanted a 4wd:



We've had well over 3 feet of snow in 3 days. The first pic I posted of the truck in front of the barn was taken 1 week ago   

Oh damn I am glad to live in the south.  LOL

Loving your RHSC I have one as well but a 02 ext cab,I will be making a thread soon.

It's so variable - we've had spring-warm weather for the past week and 95% of that snow is gone. Now I need the 4WD because the driveway is a soupy mess!

Updates: In the process of tracking down an electrical gremlin, I (meaning the shop) fixed a few other issues.

It had a random starter on it that didn't fit properly, hence the noise and occasional sticking. Replaced that and it's quiet and works like a charm now.

The possible parking pawl issue ended up being something with a rod on the shift linkage that had popped out of place. Works great now and goes into park as it should.

Both the coil and ignition module were arcing and partially burned and distributor rotor was basically MIA - sort of shocked it ran as well as it did before. Replaced all of that along with a new dist. cap and it's running as smooth/quiet as new now.

Some combination of those new parts/fixes also made the trans shifts 100% better. It used to slam into every gear and push against the brakes a bit at stop lights (my '93 did that as well...) and it doesn't do any of that anymore.

On the down-side, my wipers stopped working on a 50 mile slushy highway drive this morning so I had to Ace Ventura it... Probably just something not plugged in tight on reassembly but I haven't had a chance to look into it yet.

so I had to Ace Ventura it...

Pure class hahaha

Love getting all those little things working and it feels like a new truck again.  I need to give the Long Bed a once over again to try and clear up my own set of mystery gremlins.

Dug around under the hood yesterday - the wiper motor mounting bolt that doubles a ground was loose. Cleaned it, tightened it, and the wipers work again!

I also found all 4 screws holding the cowl panel were missing and nearly every easily accessible screw on the dash was loose/gone. It's a much quieter place to spend time now!

Changed the PCV valve since it was easy. Tried to put on my new washer reservoir cap from Rockauto (old one is in pieces) and it was too small 

I'm really starting to hate this POS.



I'm also really starting to wonder how it actually ran...

Did the compression blow that out of the cylinder or did you actually try to remove it?

WOW. 

I tried to remove it and it just slide out as soon as I put the plug socket on it. I was going to swap them anyway but I wanted to read that plug to see if a leaky FP reg was dumping fuel into that cylinder. I worked at it with an easy out for an hour last night before giving up and just letting it soak in penetrating oil. At least access through the wheel well is good.

I blew the porcelain out of a plug on my 2.8, but I'm pretty sure that was a manufacturing fluke rather than rust like that. Driving on 5 cylinders was interesting, but easy enough to fix at a friends house with the tools I had in the truck.

THAT is a whole different situation. Worst case a spark plug tap and a magnet reach tool to get all the debris out can't be too costly. How are the other plugs? I imagine the Stepchild will be much better behaved once you get those swapped.

I'm thinking of renaming it the clustertruck.

I did get it eventually with an easy-out, 2 feet of socket extensions to get out the wheel well past fender, one broken tap handle, and a very large adjustable wrench. The biggest PITA was just finding something to adapt the easy-out to something I get leverage on - I was surprised that the adjustable wrench held tight enough as I really had to lean on it.

I didn't test my luck on the other 5 plugs yet but I soaked them all in seafoam deep-creep for a future project/frustration. This would have been much more difficult on a 2wd where plug access through the wheel well isn't as good.



I'm going to pull the intake manifold and change the FP regulator and maybe the lines before I attempt the other plugs.

I also swapped the broken rear hatch handle last night, which is only a 10 minute job if anyone is curious.

That didn't get any less ugly.

Started the FP regulator fix a few nights ago after the baby went to bed. This is after a pile of cleaning - you can see how clean the passenger side is from the leaking regulator. The upper is thick with black crude and soaking in degreaser at the moment:



When I did this on my '03 a few years ago it was absolutely spotless inside - the lack of EGR and the methanol injection I ran while boosted must have kept the crude off it



FYI: pulling the manifold on a CPI is so much easier than on the newer 4.3's, it only took 10 or 15 minutes to get it to this point. I have a new set of return lines that I picked up cheap in the classifieds, so I may swap those while I'm in there if it's not a PITA.

Got it cleaned up and back together last night. Didn't end up changing the return lines but the old ones seemed fine anyway. It ran rough for the first 10 minutes or so, probably because of all of the crude loosened up in the manifold and the cleaner residue on everything but after it warmed up it ran like a champ. Solid idle, no stink of gas in the cab like before, and strong (for what it is) acceleration.

Next up is a power window motor for the rear door and the other 5 spark plugs.

Scrap that last line - next up was a new fuel pump / sending unit. The line coming out of the pump rotted and was pumping gas onto the top of the tank at an alarming rate. It finally doesn't stink like fuel anymore!