The Grey Truck Part 1

So, quite some time ago, Silliman wrote a little blog piece about the end of his green S-10. I owe a similar piece about the Grey Truck, but I can only really do disjointed paragraphs on the topic.

The Beginning:
The grey truck was a S-15 Jimmy, with two-doors, 2.8L TBI, 700R4 Transmission, a NP207 Transfer Case, and 3.73 gears. After some very hard negotiation, I paid $2800 for it in February 1999. At the time, believe it or not, it had no visible rust whatsoever, though the A/C was inoperative, and the heat didn't work well either. The A/C turned out to only need a good thumping on the compressor clutch to free it up, and the heat only needed a new $4 thermostat. I was pretty smug about talking the dealer down so far on the price, then having the good fortune to fix the A/C and heat for a whopping $4.

The first summer I had it, I needed a trailer hitch installed, and spent a fun Saturday morning making one, after sneaking up to a parked truck to take measurements off its hitch. The homemade hitch would serve to pull incredibly heavy items over the next 8 years, from a stuck H2 Hummer to a large surface grinder/trailer combination that exceeded GMC's tow limit by a high margin.