2008 Hummer H3 Alpha

[JPaul]

Finally received the replacement shock, got the rear's installed yesterday. It drives even better now that the rear is properly dampened.

Um, yeah, the one on the right isn't supposed to do that...

That would explain why I was still getting some banging coming from the passenger rear corner. Fortunately it wasn't in place for very long with the new springs, so there shouldn't be any damage to the leaf pack on that side. It's not completely shot though, I left it sitting overnight and it almost extended all the way back out on its own...


On a different note, I fixed my CD player. It wasn't ejecting disks, turns out the rubber roller that feeds the discs in and out was slipping. Added a couple drops of Superglue and that took care of it. Now I can use my Guardians of the Galaxy 2 sound track CD in more than my H3. I also wired in an aux input. And I figured out why my nav system's GPS seemed to not be working, the antenna cable was cut, so I fixed that as well.

Unfortunately when I had the head unit apart to fix the CD drive, I apparently screwed up the touch screen so it's effectively useless now. Guess it's time for a new stereo...

 

[JPaul]

Bit of an update, the Fox shocks are doing really well though I haven't taken them offroad yet.

I picked up a Kenwood Excelon DDX9904S to replace the factory unit. It has a bunch of nice features including Android Auto, front/rear camera inputs (which I have a couple cameras to use for that which I need to install), etc. I've been using it for a couple months now and really like it. At first I was having issues when trying to use Android Auto, it kept locking up and I'd have to unplug my phone and back out of it. After a bunch of troubleshooting and Google-**** I determined it was most likely the cords I was using. Seems the Android Auto setup is excessively sensitive to the length and quality of the cord you use.I already had a 3 foot extension in place to go from the back of the radio to the dash, so adding another 3 foot cable, no matter how nice, just wouldn't work. I ordered a set of 1 foot cables and when I got them it solved the problem. I have not had any issues since.

I've also spent some time trying to figure out a new cellphone holder and where I'm going to put the head for my ham radio (Icom 706MKIIG). The current cellphone holder has been ok, but the grips in the clamps are starting to lose their ability to hold onto my phone, especially in the cold. I have looked at a number of other options, but the ones that were secure enough for my large phone and offroading (or even just a bumpy road) were too much of a hassle to put the phone in and out frequently, with the exception of the Ram X-grip. I was hesitant about the X-grip since it still wasn't quite what I had in mind, but short of custom fabricating something it seemed to the best option. Since I had $40 at Summit Racing from all the engine parts I bought earlier this year, I went ahead and picked up an X-grip. I haven't mounted it yet but it does hold my phone very securely, so I think it will work out for me.

As for my ham radio head unit, I was going to mount a Ram arm setup on my dash, but then I discovered the remote cable is only 11.5 feet long, which for where I will be mounting the main body of the radio is not near long enough. Instead what I think I am going to do is run the remote cable up over the headliner and fabricate an overhead shelf that will go where my visors mount. I never use my visor and I can fabricate a thin fold down visor for the passenger side for my wife to use. The roof is pretty low on the H3 so I rarely need to use my visor. The shelf will give me another stowage space and something to mount the RAM arm for the Icom's head unit, as well as other things. I will probably stick my CB radio up there as well.

 

[JPaul]

I spent the last couple of days starting the rear power project. I'm not back to work until January 2nd so I am really hoping I can take this time to get this project done. It's really a pretty big project and probably at least 1/4 to 1/2 of my time has been spent trying to figure out all the little details. But it's starting to come together pretty well and as long as the weather cooperates I think I can get it all done, or at least done enough. Unfortunately the last two days were the warmest weather I am probably going to get, the next week is supposed to get no warmer than 30F, with about half of them in the mid to low 20's Fahrenheit.

First step was to pull the back seats out so that I could get all the panels off the sides in the rear. Then there was a lot of testing and pondering just how to run the cables. Yesterday I also was able to get the firewall pass-through installed. It goes right where the clutch pedal would go if this were a manual, it's been a great spot to pierce the firewall for stuff like this. The pass-through uses a slotted hole (circle with two sides cut to keep the unit from spinning) so that was a bit of a pain to create. I drilled a 1" hole first and then used a bastard file to shape the hole to match. I used some gasket sealant to seal it all up.

During that process I did a ton of test fitting and figuring out how I was going to route the cables and fabricate the panel that is going to fill the rear window to mount the fuse center and my ham radio, as well as anything else I need there.

This morning I worked on figuring out how to route the ground cable that is going to run from the fuse center down to the frame. I will be using the frame as the main ground, it's more than capable of handling the load I could ever run through it, and I will be upgrading the current ground at the battery to 2/0 to match the rear. I'll probably also bump up the positive from the alternator to the battery eventually.

For the ground I eventually figured out that the rear pillar is more or less hollow from top to bottom, so instead of running the cable into it from half way down, I can just do it right from the top and have it run clear down and exit out right behind the rear wheel well and right by a good spot to attach it to the frame.

At first I was going to use the existing hole as you can see above, but decided I might as well just drill a hole in the side of the pillar to pass the cable through. This is going to help me keep this all nice and clean looking once everything is buttoned up.

 

[JPaul]

For the panel I decided that it would be best, and safest, to fabricate brackets that will bolt to where the upper and lower panels clip on so that I can bolt the panel directly to the body rather than foolishly hoping the upper panel's clips would be strong enough to allow me to bolt the panel directly to it and have everything stay in place. I'm going to use some aluminum angle for that. It will make more sense once I actually start working on that part, which will hopefully be tomorrow. In preparation for that though I removed the clips for the lower panel where I will be bolting the aluminum to, and I cut off the upper clips for the upper trim panel.

Since I didn't have another $100 or more to drop on a good hydraulic or manual crimper, I chose to go the cheap but likely just as effective route of using a hammer crimper. Now before anyone gets their hair in a twist, I'm not using a hammer with it. The main difference between a hammer indent crimper and a hydraulic indent crimper is just that, the hydraulics. I have a 20 ton shop press, and while it's not exactly portable, it does seem to work well with the indent crimper to make respectable crimps. I did not test them for pull out or anything like that, and frankly I don't care that much.

Here are the results:

That is a 2/0 cable to give an idea of the size of that crimp, and I chose to spend the money on some FTZ heavy duty lugs. Like I said, this is going to be good enough for me for now. If it ends up becoming an issue then later on when I have the funds for a good hand operated crimper I'll just cut the ends off and crimp new lugs on.

To finish them off I used some adhesive lined heat shrink. I preheated the lug and cable sheath with my heat gun since it was about 33F out or so, that way I could be sure the adhesive really sealed properly.

The ground cable came with lugs crimped on already, but truth be told they were only acceptable, while they were tinned and relatively thick, they weren't anywhere near as nice as the FTZ lugs. I bought the FTZ lugs partly because the cables I got all had 3/8" holes, when at least half my connections really needed 5/16". So I spent the money and not only get better lug ends, but also can make sure they are properly sized for the attachment point.

 

[JPaul]

Some shots showing the routing of the negative cable through the rear pillar. I'll be adding split loom along the length and some ABS pipe where it exits the pillar at the bottom to protect the cable. While it is the negative cable and does not pose a hazard if it wears through, it isn't good for the life of the cable.

 

[JPaul]

Initial routing of the 3/0 positive cable:

 

[JPaul]

I notched the lower and upper trim panels for the positive cable and the upper panel is notched for the ground cable as well. I had to do some additional notching for the positive cable due to a misjudgment on my part of how everything was going to fit. That subwoofer unit is really in the way and taking up a lot of useful space, but I also like the better sound I get with it, so it's a real toss up. Maybe someday I'll pull the subwoofer out and leave the Monsoon amplifier in place to use the space for something else, but for now I'll just work around it.

The positive cable is actually for a Kenworth tractor, it is 3/0 SAE SGX flex (though it doesn't flex near as much as the ground cable which is 2/0 marine cable with a more flexible jacket). I picked it up for a steal, especially considering the first item they sent me was some 2 gauge instead of 2/0 like the auction was originally labeled for but they let me keep in addition to sending me the "right" cable. However it was also 18' long, which was roughly 5-6 feet longer than I needed. Here is where having to rough fit everything first and then cutting the cable and crimping it outside of the car is a challenge, I may or may not have still ended up with it being too long. I won't know for sure until I get everything all put together. I am thinking though that I may cut the cable right where it curves around the subwoofer and make a junction to tie in another length of cable to use for powering a rear winch and/or providing house power to my trailer.

Tomorrow I hope to go get the material to start making the power center panel brackets and finish getting this closer to buttoned up.

 

[JPaul]

Didn't get as much done as I was planning on today, instead I spent most of my time wandering around Lowes figuring out how to put the brackets all together and buying Christmas decorations for 75% off.

I did get the brackets in place tonight though. I used 1/8" x 1" aluminum angle and bolted it in place using the existing holes/slots the trim panel's clipped into.

Lower:

Upper:

Another shot of the upper showing the spacers (washers) to get it to fit correctly. Initially I used 1/2" nylon spacers, but those were too thick, then I tried 1/4", but that was still too thick, so I dropped down to 3 washers which is just about right.

The upper bracket is extremely sturdy, the lowering has some flex towards the rear but it should tighten up nicely once the panel is bolted into place. I'm debating if this will be strong enough to handle the dynamic load of my ham radio's main chassis, it's pretty heavy weighing in around 5 pounds. So even with how strong this should all be once it's fully assembled, I am worried about horizontal loading from the radio possibly eventually work hardening the lower rear sheet metal from flexing back and forth. I may just mount the radio chassis to the lower trim panel since it would be able to withstand the load just fine, but we'll see how it all works out. I am thinking of adding a brace from the rear-most bolt for the lower bracket to another bolt a few inches lower that the subwoofer assembly uses to help stiffen everything up, which would probably be a good idea no matter which way I go with mounting the radio chassis.

The next step is going to be measuring where the brackets are located in relation to the window glass, then putting the upper trim in place and marking where to drill, then drill pilot holes through the trim and the brackets. Then I will pull the trim back off, drill the trim to size for the mounting bolts, and then drill the brackets out to accept rivnuts and install those. I have a set of various sizes of metric rivnuts which will work great for this setup, I can simply bolt through the trim when installing the main panel for the electrical. I chose to go with metric for as much as possible on the H3 since virtually every bolt and nut on it is metric. It's a lot easier to only have to carry one set of tools to work on my rig, either at home or out in the field.

 

[JPaul]

Slow going thanks to the cold and just being tired from this entire year.

Managed to at least get the rivnuts in. Started out by measuring everything off the glass and marking the glass with a sharpie.

Next up was putting the trim back on, transferring my measurements and marking the drill locations, then drilling 1/8" pilot holes through the trim and the aluminum angle. I then drilled out the aluminum for the rivnuts. Since I am using metric rivnuts my standard drill bit sets didn't have the size I needed, so I ended up having to take some time running over to Harbor Freight and buying one of their 29 piece fractional sets.

For the installation I just used a M6 bolt, nut, and a piece of flat strapping that already had holes in it. It's a cheap and easy method for installing rivnuts without buying the tool that may or may not break on you unless you spend a couple hundred dollars. You simply hold the flat stock in place so that the rivnut doesn't try to spin, hold the bolt in place as well using a wrench, and then turn the nut with a wrench to set the rivnut.

I also added some red threadlocker to help secure the rivnuts. While they can hold in place pretty well usually, and in this case especially since it's able to bite into the aluminum nicely, you can run into instances where the rivnut may spin if it's over-tightened or the bolt seizes in it. Hopefully neither will happen in my case, but it doesn't hurt to be proactive.

I should have done some testing on the extra bit of aluminum angle to make sure the rivnuts would work the way I was anticipating, but I used a mirror to make sure they were flaring correctly. It's a bit hard to see here but if you look you can see the rivnut flaring out and biting into the aluminum.

Rivnuts all in place and ready for the electrical panel to be bolted in (once I fabricate it of course). This whole setup should be plenty strong and provide years of service.

 

[JPaul]

Finally got it mostly buttoned up today. It's complete enough that I was able to get the trim back on and the seats in so that my kids can ride with me again.

First up was making a chafing guard for the upper hole. I used some door edge trim that I cut to allow it to flex enough.

To make a sheath for the ground cable I took some heater hose, cut it in a spiral (so that it will stay on even with bends), and wrapped it around the cable. I ran into trouble feeding it back through the pillar as the heater hose kept getting caught and then trying to peel off. To fix that I used some of the adhesive heat shrink and used that to fasten the one end of the hose to the cable. Taking the subwoofer out to gain access to another hole in the pillar helped as well. I'm going to put some heatshrink on the upper end as well once I have everything all in place to make it clean.

 

[JPaul]

Next up was routing the positive cable. I gave myself several extra inches when I shortened it, since I know it's easier to shorten it again than it is to have to buy a whole other cable. Turned out to be a good thing as the extra length I gave myself ended up being just right once I had the cable properly routed and fastened into place.

And here it is with the trim back in place:

Now that this part is done, I am going to take my time to get the rest of it finished up. I still need to fabricate the panel that will go in the window, get that mounted as well as the fuseblock, run the cables up in the engine bay, and then start on the rest of the wiring for the fridge, radio, inverter, etc.

 

[chilliwak]

Finally received the replacement shock, got the rear's installed yesterday. It drives even better now that the rear is properly dampened.

Um, yeah, the one on the right isn't supposed to do that...

That would explain why I was still getting some banging coming from the passenger rear corner. Fortunately it wasn't in place for very long with the new springs, so there shouldn't be any damage to the leaf pack on that side. It's not completely shot though, I left it sitting overnight and it almost extended all the way back out on its own...


On a different note, I fixed my CD player. It wasn't ejecting disks, turns out the rubber roller that feeds the discs in and out was slipping. Added a couple drops of Superglue and that took care of it. Now I can use my Guardians of the Galaxy 2 sound track CD in more than my H3. I also wired in an aux input. And I figured out why my nav system's GPS seemed to not be working, the antenna cable was cut, so I fixed that as well.

Unfortunately when I had the head unit apart to fix the CD drive, I apparently screwed up the touch screen so it's effectively useless now. Guess it's time for a new stereo...

Change those shocks out quicly with a set of Bilsteins. You will never regret it! Cheers, Chilli...

 

[JPaul]

Change those shocks out quicly with a set of Bilsteins. You will never regret it! Cheers, Chilli...

I like the Fox 2.0's that I put in during all this better than the Bilstein 5100's I had on my last Hummer H3. They're both great shocks, but I feel like the Fox's are just a bit better at damping.

 

[JPaul]

Been a while, work has been keeping me busy and the weather has not really been cooperating when I do have free time, plus trying to get the house packed up and ready to sell has been chewing a lot of my time. I've made zero progress on the rear power of course, but with a trip to Moab coming up this weekend and then in May I'll be going to the Overland Expo West, I needed to get some work done.

To start, I am going to be putting some 20w (10w really, they're Chinese knockoffs of the KC Hilites, but still are just what I was wanting in a light as far as pattern went) flood lights on the roof as camp/area lights as part of this, but getting all the parts I needed for the switches and whatnot was not only going to take longer than I wanted, but I knew that getting it all hooked up would take forever as well. Fortunately my wife is very understanding and agreed that it would be best in the long run to just go with the Switch Pros SP-9100 instead of either trying to roll my own, or using some cheap Chinese knockoff that may or may not work well. Thankfully Amazon had it available with next day, so I received it yesterday and even better was the weather cooperating tonight and not raining on me like it originally was planned to.

First up was finally drilling the hole in the firewall for the boot I've had sitting around almost a year and getting that installed so that I could route the control panel cable in, as well as the cables for my oil pressure gauge. The gauge is still housed in the cardboard insert from the original packaging, but at least now the cables aren't being fed in through the door opening. Did I mention I've had very little free time the last year or so?

So that part didn't take me very long, maybe a half hour or so and that included trying to find my sealant. Next up was figuring out where and how to mount the control unit for the SP-9100. Since the warranty dictates that it has to be mounted upright instead of flat, I had to find somewhere to put it that permitted that orientation. Unfortunately the Hummer H3 is very, very short on space and surfaces in the engine bay, especially when it has a V8 shoehorned into it. I eventually figured out that I could mount it on the fender wall on the driver side. There happened to be an existing hole that I could put a bolt through after pulling the wheel well liner, and then the bracket would use that bolt plus an existing bolt used for a ground point after bending a "Z" in the bracket to space it correctly.

Here it is with the bracket and power unit all in place. This is as far as I was able to get tonight, but considering it originally was supposed to rain all day and night, I'm pretty happy to have gotten this much done. It took me a lot longer than I would have liked to get just this part mounted, but at least it's done right.

And while I had the wheel well liner removed, I took a shot to show why having a snorkel installed before the Moab trip is one of my (loftier) goals.

That is not several years of dust and dirt. That is less than a year's worth. I has moved the wheel liners over from my red H3 to this one since they were already cut for the Thor bumper. Considering we're just getting out of winter here, that is really only several months worth of grit built up in there. And to top it off I have done very little actual offroading with this truck so far. Most of it has been on the street.

While this is the driver's side, I am sure the passenger side where the engine air intake pulls from is just as dirty. So don't think that just because an intake is pulling from inside the wheel well that it's getting relatively clean air. There is still lots of dust getting kicked up in there while driving around, so for me having a snorkel (or raised air intake if you will) is a necessity to help my filter life while offroading, and just driving around in general.

 

[JPaul]

So this happened:

Blew the spider and axle gears in the rear differential on Metal Masher down in Moab this week. I was trying to get up a short ledge/waterfall (maybe three feet) and apparently hit it just wrong and popped a gear apart, by the time I got up it and started getting to the next obstacle there was a really good pop coming from the rear axle. I tried to get it up the next obstacle but that just blew the gers even more and punched a hole in my diff cover. Fortunately I was with a great group of guys and they helped my get the cover sealed back up and all the chunks out, then I used Alrock as an anchor and winched myself up the rest of the next waterfall obstacle and then he pulled me the rest of the way up the trail with a strap until we crested the hill we were on. I then was able to drive the rest of the way out in front wheel drive. The next day Reloader and Alrock very graciously offered to tow me the 4 hours home with Alrock's truck and Reloader's trailer.

Once I got my side of the garage cleaned out and the truck inside and unloaded, I pulled the cover back off the next day to re-inspect the damage. Turned out I broke more than I originally thought.

Passenger axle gear (I had already seen the damage to this while on the trail:

Cracked about a third of the gear off. It's only staying in because it has a stepped collar that goes into the carrier.


Then there is the driver side axle gear, I didn't see this damage until I got home.

Couple teeth busted off this side and left a small hole in the back of the gear:

Then I turned the axle 180 degrees and saw this part too:

But the nice thing about those holes is it let me inspect the locking pins for the Eaton E-Locker. They are starting to be rounded off, a lot more than I think would have happened from how much and how I have been using the rear locker since I bought it. The rear has never been rebuilt though so for >160k miles they aren't too bad.