Build Hummer H3 Build

Ok, I am back from the hammers, and it was a good trip. Now that I am home, it is weird, the rise and hype of the event and the craziness of getting ready and prepping and now it's kind of a big letdown. I usually don't feel this way after a trip, but I do.

Anyways, wheeling was a little sparse at times. I spent 4 full days there with 2 partial days on each end. Thursday night we ran Turkey claw and SOS. We had an unexpected recovery on SOS. A poor guy rolled his WJ on 1 tons and 40s with 3 friends in the cab. Luckily no one got hurt even without a cage but the cab is ****ed. I have carried 200 feet of winch extension in the Hummer for years and never needed it until this trip. It was a life saver. Without it I am not sure how we would have flopped him back over. We ran it up to a rock 100 plus feet up the side of a canyon and snatch blocked it to flop him back over.

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Friday and Saturday no wheeling which kind of sucked but expected when you are at KOH.

Stockish H3 for reference. Leveling kit, stock rear and 35s vs. SAS on 42s. It's much bigger but I really tried to keep it as low as possible.

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Sunday we ran Claw, King's Veto, Resolution and then did a night run to Turkey and up SOS.

Clawhammer was fun, it is not the most difficult trail but it definitely has gotten its bite back for being claw. I also was especially happy with Claw because we had a large group with us and in that group was a friend with his willy's. His old willy's has been a heartbreaker of a story where he spends good money at shops and continually gets ****ed. I can go on and on about the details but in the end it was a disaster. I would travel for work in his area every few months and if I was free a night or two while in his area I would go over and rebuild his diff, or t case or bring his suspension to full bump and clearance all the **** that hit and collided with each other. Finally it is running and successfully ran Claw!!!

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So after Claw the smaller rigs parked and watched us go up kings veto. The hummer killed it on that trail! I stayed in the rocks and it did really well. I didnt need a single winch to pull me forward and out but one at the end to prevent me from flopping.

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They put a winch line on my cage here and I drove out, looking back, if I front dig'd I think I could have leveled out the body but oh well. Had fun and was super proud of the job the Hummer did on kings veto.

Here is a cool pic where it shows my old link mount would have been a huge hang up but instead the higher and tucked up links now slide (and sometimes miss) with ease.

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Here is a nice shot towards the top of reso

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SOS became a **** show. Instead of turning around at the waterfall and going back down we went up the steep hill to the left. My buddy's wife took this pic as she could see the 2 rigs that went up (mine and my one friend) the rest turned around after we said, **** no. LOL

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We both had to winch at the top, it was so loose and soft up near the top that traction was tough to come by. After a full throttle assault and hitting a rock my front end was airborne it was truly time to say pull out the winch, it isn't worth dying. lol

When we got to the top we turned left towards an exit down near the blueberry area it wasnt blueberry but in that area) the side hill out was so sketchy, I tapped my brakes and the ass end would slide out and put me more off camber. In the end we had to winch myself down. We creatively ran my winch rope through my a pillar, b pillar bars to the D pillar where we then ran an extension to keep my ass end from sliding over. I am very unsatisfied with the performance of the hummer in this moment but I will get to that later.

We were able to get me down safely and it was because of great team work and creative thinking, I truly do value the group I wheel with because we stick together even when **** hits the fan.



Monday we ran Sledge and that took all day. We ran Turkey one more time (I ****ing hate that trail LOL) and then over to blueberry.

On the first obstacle I broke my front CV driveshaft, I have a toyota CV front driveshaft and I probably was crazy for thinking it would live as long as it did and it truly is what came first the chicken or the egg? I was so bound up and at one point fully drooped out I ripped my limit strap tab off the axle. It was welded to the cast pumpkin but it lasted 6 years. I didnt expect it to let go but it did. I knew my CV didnt bind even without a limit strap but did it over extend a tad? I mean the whole thing exploded into multiple pieces.

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Here you can see I can't turn the wheel, I had to hi lift my wheel up to turn. I think I have out grown my single ended 1.5in ram. This is the 2nd time I couldn't turn no matter what I tried.
 
06h3 besides a bigger ram, have you thought about upgrading the pump/reservoir to something aftermarket, psc/radial dynamics stuff? I'm guessing it will help with pressure at lower rpm as we'll
 
So we get myself back out and my friend runs back to camp while we start fixing. I changed my driveshaft to my well worn, out of balance 1410 single joint on both ends driveshaft and hit the obstacle again.

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This time, with a new line I make it up the obstacle I broke on! What a great feeling. If I didn't have a poor line choice I probably wouldn't have broke but such is life. Could of would of should of or whatever the saying is....

I made the plaque line and then winched right after it in a pinch spot and drove out the rest of the way so 1 winch due to being stuck and 1 winch back to fix my broken ****.

Then Turkey and blueberry were uneventful.

Last night at camp we got to see Elon at work

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Tuesday we headed out.

So I have been pondering, the Hummer did things I was proud of and did things I wasn't as proud of. I have been smashing this thing into places it doesn't belong for years. The binding, crunching and fighting it does is impressive but I asked myself, is it time to build a buggy? I have been down this road before and haven't built one yet but it had me thinking. While this rig has the perfect components for a bomb proof buggy I wouldnt part it out. This still has full doors that open and close, cruises on the highway and is a great rig for the rubicon and family.

Last time I was out at the hammers we ran the OG course and it did well and kept up just fine, and even this week it did fine but was a tampon on sledge and that downhill section after SOS.

So how do I improve it?

Well, steering has gotta get redone....the lack of steering put me in a bad spot. Assuming a 1600 psi pump, a 2.5in ram that the full hydro guys use puts out over 5k lbs of force. a 1.5in ram puts out 2800 one way and 2300 the other way. I wont go full hydro but I need to get the steering force up. AgitatedPancake has regular hydro assist with a 2.5 double ended ram and said its got power but is slow, I can do that or I can depower a box and do the setup that the 4500 guys use. I gotta figure that out.

2nd thing I need to figure out/redo is my rear suspension. At off camber angles it is sketchy ONLY when the driver side is the high side. I am not sure why, I had this same feeling on the rubicon. When at the bottom of the slabs near the off camber straight section on the rubicon it is stable coming from the loon side. (pass side is the high side) but when coming back (the driver side on the high side) it is substantially more sketchy. It was never that way with leaf springs.

Is it preload? I assume I have 400 lbs more on the driver side (never corner scaled it but I know it is heavier on that side) so I have about 3/4-1in more preload on that side. Is that causing it? Is it the rear track bar angle? I am not sure but I need to figure it out because the **** on the SOS downhill cant happen again. It is irritating.

So that's my update.

EDIT: didnt see the 2 new posts since my last one. cgalpha08 I do not believe it is a pump related issue, I think the ram is maxed out for the power it can put out.

Mike Honcho I really liked how the 42's performed this last week. Time will tell but so far so good and it is nice to get steering angle back.
 
06h3 said:
So I have been pondering, the Hummer did things I was proud of and did things I wasn't as proud of. I have been smashing this thing into places it doesn't belong for years. The binding, crunching and fighting it does is impressive but I asked myself, is it time to build a buggy? I have been down this road before and haven't built one yet but it had me thinking. While this rig has the perfect components for a bomb proof buggy I wouldnt part it out. This still has full doors that open and close, cruises on the highway and is a great rig for the rubicon and family.
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If you are keeping the H3 for the family rig/camping trips then yes build a buggy for "crawler trips/rock trips like KOH".

Just make sure to slap on a H3 grill or some badges so you can still wheel a Hummer. Or use parts of another Hummer to make a Huggy (Hummer buggy plus fitting name with the small kiddo at home).
 
Saw it parked in front of Hammertown. Been following this thing for years and still have the 4WOR magazines when you ran UA. Cool to finally check it out in person. :smokin:
 
I understand the want for a buggy, but you ahve put so much time and work into the H3 already, I would just keep tuning it.
 
Oh, I forgot to mention, the dead pedal throttle situation I talked about a page or two back is fixed. It appears that the OS I switched to wasn't happy and killing the pedal. I went back to the old Operating system for the trans on HPTuners and it worked flawlessly. Now I just have to swap my wiring over like Grendel has and I will have the speedo working properly in 4low and I can officially check the 6l80 swap off my list as 100% complete.

I have been thinking a lot about steering and driveshafts. I have killed 2 Toyota CV's, I think it is time for a 1410 single ended u joint on each end up front. Only downside is the vibrations. I may snag a 1350 CV and clearance it to pull the angle I need. I think pound for pound the Toyota CV is strong as **** but at some point the size of the u joints are not big enough OR I over flexed it. I ripped a limit strap and it broke, what I do not understand is that the CV didnt bind even with zero limit straps when I installed it so I don't think it was binding. Anyways, I am thinking 1350 CV time.

I am pretty much dead set on a Radial Dynamics pump. it will pull 8000 rpm (most others are 7000 rpm) and go with a 2.25in double ended ram. Slightly smaller than 2.5 but hopefully that will help with speed.

Build. Break. Upgrade. Be stoked as ****. Push it harder. Break since I am doing tougher stuff. Be pist. Upgrade. Repeat. I think that's how it goes.
 
06h3 said:
I am pretty much dead set on a Radial Dynamics pump. it will pull 8000 rpm (most others are 7000 rpm) and go with a 2.25in double ended ram. Slightly smaller than 2.5 but hopefully that will help with speed.
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Are you pulling 8krpm in this thing?
 
Jesse at HAD used to say that Toyota shafts were very comparable to a 1350.

Now, I'm not sure if that translates to CV's also, as there is probably a bunch of different 1350 cv's at this point.

Do you have room for a 1410 cv? I believe they are pretty common on late model 3/4 tons and up.
 
YotaAtieToo said:
Jesse at HAD used to say that Toyota shafts were very comparable to a 1350.

Now, I'm not sure if that translates to CV's also, as there is probably a bunch of different 1350 cv's at this point.

Do you have room for a 1410 cv? I believe they are pretty common on late model 3/4 tons and up.
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I can probably make a 1410 cv work, I will probably have to modify it to pull the angle but that’s ok
 
06h3 said:
I can probably make a 1410 cv work, I will probably have to modify it to pull the angle but that’s ok
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Ya, I was just talking to a friend who just installed his 1410 cv and only gets about 22* out of it.

There are 30* and 35* versions available also though. Let me know if you want the links.
 
I wonder if I pull it apart like and modify it to pull 32-35* like guys did on the 1350 cv thread on here. I won’t do the bamf cv due to cost
 
06h3 said:
I wonder if I pull it apart like and modify it to pull 32-35* like guys did on the 1350 cv thread on here. I won’t do the bamf cv due to cost
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One of the guys from group chat we were talking about it in uses to work at high angle. He said you have to be careful trying to get too much because the ball can pop out.

He was able to go from 22* to 30* but 35* might be pushing it. Maybe if you start with the 30*?

Whats your static angle? Are positive a single u joint would vibrate?
 
YotaAtieToo said:
One of the guys from group chat we were talking about it in uses to work at high angle. He said you have to be careful trying to get too much because the ball can pop out.

He was able to go from 22* to 30* but 35* might be pushing it. Maybe if you start with the 30*?

Whats your static angle? Are positive a single u joint would vibrate?
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I mentioned 35 just because the 1350 cv guys in that Neapco 1350 cv thread said they were clearancing to 34/35*. In all reality I need 30-32*. A non ifs Toyota cv which I think was 32* cleared at full droop. I have to go back and get the exact full droop and static angle because it’s been a few years.
 
curious but unless something has changed since I did a 1350 cv don't you lose your seals and a decent amount of material around the u joints and such?

Thats why i went with a 1410 back in the day because that joint exploding almost always busted my t case or my auto trans shifter or cable.

Either way I was always immobilized by it
 
On my dads junk I made the upper control arms a little longer so the pinion would rotate up a little as the axle went down. That was good for a couple degrees.

I also added a double limit strap in the middle. It lost some straight vertical travel but could still use it all articulating.
 
I did bend my lower control arms a tad since I last measured it but bending them would point the pinion up more, when I checked it at full droop no limit straps nothing was binding with the 32* Toyota CV but I imagine the CV is quite a bit weaker at full droop then ride height or full bump. It seems the single u joints dont care as much from a strength point vs angle. I think the pin on the CV usually goes first even if it isnt binding.
 
06h3 said:
I did bend my lower control arms a tad since I last measured it but bending them would point the pinion up more, when I checked it at full droop no limit straps nothing was binding with the 32* Toyota CV but I imagine the CV is quite a bit weaker at full droop then ride height or full bump. It seems the single u joints dont care as much from a strength point vs angle. I think the pin on the CV usually goes first even if it isnt binding.
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I've only ever seen one Toyota cv break and it was on sledge actually. Right after the ledge. My buddy rear diffed and tried to claw out for a second both fronts hooked at the same time low low 2500ish rpms.

I want to say it had a big groove in it from rubbing the crossmember though.
 
Bending won't do much of anything. I moved the mounts to get the front to back between the mounts further.

I guess I never paid attention to how it was situated when it broke. I was surprised about how little vertical movement there is in the pinion when articulating. Dads junk is setup with 4" up travel and 8" down. Full articulation is a little less than 4" of drop at the pinion. Makes sense but still surprised me. The joint is no where near it's limit doing that. I wouldn't think it would be at a weaker spot. So it's either just not strong enough, or something else caused excessive wear or binding.
 
something else I thought of tonight as I'm going through my TCCM issues

Can you rotate your axle enough without issue to compensate for a single 1410 vs a cv 1350? Possible your drag link or tie rod could get into something that previously wasn't an issue?
 
1tonenvoy said:
something else I thought of tonight as I'm going through my TCCM issues

Can you rotate your axle enough without issue to compensate for a single 1410 vs a cv 1350? Possible your drag link or tie rod could get into something that previously wasn't an issue?
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I can cycle a 1410 single u joint now, they can pull 32*. It will just vibrate as the angle at ride height at the t case doesnt match up with the angle at the axle.
Penetrode Offroad said:
Turn the lights out when you leave.






Build a buggy. :stirthepot:
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Like the HF light switch? :lmao: I had some broken rock lights and that filled the need.
 
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