'08 Hummer H3 Alpha build

[JPaul]

So I really haven't been able to work on the H3 much this summer thanks to work being a nightmare. We've now gone through two guys that were supposed to replace my old coworker, but both of them were fired after three months each. The last one was more than a waste of time, he was downright almost destructive. I'm a Linux sysadmin so for those that don't know what that is I manage a bunch of web servers that various websites are hosted from, most of which are commercial sites so downtime is extremely bad. It's hard enough trying to manage a data center by yourself (we have about 250 servers or so and right now I'm the only sysadmin), but throw into that someone who not only doesn't know what they are doing but is also convinced they do and they even think they know how to do the job better than you, even though it's painfully obvious they don't, and you have a recipe for disaster. Thankfully we've learned our lesson and are being a lot more stringent on who we hire, but it's made this year an absolute nightmare for me.

Anyway, now that you have an idea of why I haven't kept this more up to date as well as why I haven't been able to get much done on the Alpha, let's move on to what is currently under way.

A couple weeks ago I got the bug to start working on the Alpha again, hopefully to finally start getting around to doing the rear electrical especially now that it's finally started cooling off outside. Something that got me thinking was a conversation I had with the guy at Master Muffler when I was picking the Alpha up after getting the O2 sensor fixed. He suggested redoing the whole exhaust to improve the flow and such. I know the passenger side has a couple crimps in the pipe to provide (unneeded) clearance, and the muffler's aren't the best (but they are already Magnaflow from the factory so they aren't terrible by any means either), but I didn't want to go with aluminized steel since it wouldn't take long for the system to rust out, especially with how much salt is used here (having a salt lake and all it's pretty cheap). Aside from the crimps in the passenger side tubes, the system overall is pretty free flowing, and really I think it's just the rear muffler that causes the most back pressure due to the number of bends the exhaust gasses have to make. So I went underneath the truck to look at how the muffler is hooked up, and it's actually nicely setup so that I can just unhook the rear muffler and remove it and then run a tail pipe straight back to the bumper.

This will do several things for me. One, it will open up the system a bit. Two, it will give me better clearance at the back when coming down from obstacles, I've already squeezed one of the tips a bit during my trip to Moab this past spring. Three, it will give me a good amount of room under the back where the muffler sits to mount equipment like my ARB twin air compressor and maybe a second battery, or even a rear winch. Four, it will drastically reduce how much heat is transferred into the floor of the back. Right now during trips the floor of the rear cargo area can get pretty warm, especially with stuff stacked on it. Since I keep my fridge back there it can cause it to have to run more frequently and longer to keep everything cold. Another benefit will possibly be a nicer sound. There will still be the first muffler that is mounted before the rear axle, so the noise shouldn't be much of an issue. I can always try it out first and see how the sound is before I fully commit to it.

 

[JPaul]

So, while I was under the truck looking at all this and taking measurements and such, I glanced down at one of the shock mounts and discovered a new problem.

At some point the inner ear for the shock cracked off. The brackets had been modified to give a little bit of additional clearance, but unfortunately the stresses apparently became to much for one of the welds. This would explain the increased noise I've been getting from that rear corner lately. While I could just re-weld it, I decided that it was just time to rebuild the rear suspension. The truck has ~160k miles on it, and a lot of them were probably hard miles, so the suspension has pretty much seen its day. I was planning on refreshing the suspension anyway, this is just a bit sooner than I was hoping.

Have you ever seen the clip from Malcom in the Middle where the father goes to turn on a light and the bulb is burnt out, and then several scenes later the wife comes home and notices the light is burnt out and asks him if he's going to replace the light bulb? He rolls out from underneath his vehicle which has the engine out and responds "What does it look like I'm doing???" Yeah, it turned out kind of like that (although thankfully I've already rebuilt my engine).

Since I'm going to replace the leaf spring clamp plates, I should replace the U-bolts as well (technically should not reuse them, even though some do), and since I have those off, I should replace the leaf springs which are also pretty worn and starting to splay apart and have issues. And since I'm doing that, I should replace the rear bump stops as well since I have a pair of new ones in hand already. Oh, and I ought to replace the shackle bushings in the frame, since at least one of them are still pretty old. And I have new urethane bushings for the sway bar. Maybe new shocks too since I'm not entirely sure how old the current ones are, and since I'm doing all this I can get them past the wife without much fuss. Hmm, I really need to replace the outer front differential bushings with the ones from the Outfitter Design kit I have, I already did the center bushing and I'm going to have the truck down for a bit anyway.

Well that turned into even more work. I tried to see if I could replace them without having to pull the front suspension all apart, but that just is a no-go. So now that I'm having to tear apart the front suspension to replace the diff bushings, I should probably replace the lower ball joints and control arm bushings with the new parts I already had sitting around (got the ball joints with the truck and the bushings are urethane's from Siberian Bushing that I ordered to replace the aging originals). Oh, better swap out that off brand CV axle with the OEM spare I have. And the axle seals since those have been on there for about 4 years already and are starting to weep a bit. Hmm, Upper control arms might be OK, but one of them looks like the bushings are starting to go out, so better replace those now rather than having an issue later, plus I'll end up with trail spares. Oh, new front shocks too, got to keep it all matching. OH, look at that, the UCA bolts are a bit buggered, better replace those as well with greaseable bolts so that they don't seize.

And so on, and so forth.


So now I am redoing my entire suspension, both front and rear. Front is getting new OEM axles, Moog UCA's, rebuilt LCA's with urethane bushings, Moog greaseable UCA bolts, AC Delco greaseable sway bar rods, urethane sway bar bushings, Fox 2.0 shocks, new bump stops, and some other minor stuff. Rear is getting new leaf spring clamp plates, U-bolts, bump stops, urethane sway bar bushings, Fox 2.0 shocks, Old Man Emu leaf springs, new shackles with new bolts and frame bushings, and whatever minor stuff comes up. It's a ton of work, and a lot of money, but it's going to end up being better than new when I am done and should make it a lot more enjoyable to drive. It's incredible the difference in ride quality between my 2008 red H3 and this 2008 Alpha H3. The red H3's suspension is in much better shape and is really quite comfortable to drive. The Alpha is definitely showing the 50k+ additional miles it has over my red H3.

 

[JPaul]

Here's something that I wanted to share with everyone since I have only ever been able to find exactly one picture of them on the entire Internet (and I'm pretty darn good at doing searches) and unfortunately that one photo wasn't a very good shot of them.

These are what actual Old Man Emu leaf springs for the Hummer H3 look like:

The "military wrap" (which while it will work, I'd have preferred if they brought it up around a bit more to provide better fore-aft retention, but I am assuming they have a reason for doing it this way due to clearance issues):

More detail of the leaves:

I have no real idea of how they ride, though the one other person I know that actually has these said they were pretty good. I figure for only a bit more than new OEM stock springs as long as they are as at least as good as OEM then it won't be too bad. The "military wrap" leaves a bit to be desired but it will definitely give me some peace of mind. I wish they had done something similar with the rear of the spring as well, but I guess they must have had a reason for it. At least now if the front top leaf breaks the second leaf will still keep the vehicle supported correctly. I also like that it uses the bolt together clamps which will really help keep the leaves from splaying apart like the OEM's like to do, plus I can easily repair it if needs be at a later date. The OEM clamps that are bent over are next to impossible to work with and really need to be taken to a spring shop to have them remove them and then put new ones on. I also like the shaping of the bottom leaf, it's not just a hard cut bar with sharp edges but actually tapers out to give it better support and be gentler on that second to bottom leaf. I'm looking forward to seeing how these do. I also ordered the Air Lift helper airbag springs to provide adjustable load support when I load the back up with all my gear and when I tow.

 

[JPaul]

What does it look like when you completely remove all of the front suspension on an H3? Like this:

The gloves are covering the tie rod ends, rain was forecasted and I didn't want them to get wet and start rusting on me. I also plugged up the openings in the axle to keep dust and whatnot out.

It took me longer than I would have liked to tear that all apart, but it was definitely needed. At least one of the lower ball joints was noticeably loose, I'm sure the other one probably is as well. The bushings were in OK shape, but definitely on their way out, especially the rear bushings for the lower control arms.

 

[JPaul]

I'll tell you what, finally breaking down and buying a 20 ton shop press and an air hammer were a couple of the best decisions I have made yet. Life changing, seriously. What used to involve lots of blood, sweat, tears, fire, and sacrificing to the automobile gods, as well as several hours of your life, has been reduced down to mere minutes of relatively easy work.

Pressing out the old front bushing:

Pressing out the rubber from the outer diff bushing:

Which it turns out I probably didn't need to push out the rubber and inner metal sleeve of the diff bracket bushing, since I was able to just take my air hammer and hit the outer metal sleeve of the bushing from the back and they popped right out. Last time I replaced those bushings it involved an hour or so of burning out the rubber and then slitting the sleeve with a saw, then peeling out the sleeve. Lots of wasted time, and it damages the paint/powdercoating of the bracket.

Pressing in the new front bushings wasn't too bad either. I knew it was going to be a bit of a challenge due to the shape of the bushing (here is a link to the Siberian Bushing replacement, it's shaped exactly the same as the OEM rubber one and either is a one peice unit: ). I took my time because I didn't want to accidentally tear the bushing, but using the grease that was provided and slowly working the lip of the bushing down into arm I was able to relatively easily get them pressed in. It would definitely have been a huge pain to try and do that with a ball joint press.

Speaking of which, here is the setup I used to press in the new rear lower control arm bushings using the ball joint press I rented from Autozone:

You do have to have the differential at least unbolted from the sides, I still had the center bolt in place and just pivoted the differential to make room, though on the passenger side it was still a tight fit. I could not get the ball joint press to sit correctly from the outside as the throat of the press is not deep enough. But overall it went together pretty smoothly. You have to measure where the old bushing sat in relation to the cross member as you do not press the bushing all the way in, and if it's not in the right place then it doesn't line up with the front pivot of the arm. Make sure though to not press it in too far, as the outer metal sleeve of the bushing is a bit cone shaped and if it goes in too far and you have to back it out, it probably won't be tight in the crossmember anymore and can cause issues. Better to not press it in far enough, check the alignment with the arm and then press it in further to get it all lined up. I did that on each side and while you'd think a millimeter or so won't make much difference with getting the arm in, it really does.

 

[JPaul]

I spent a good part of the day Saturday working on re-assembling the front suspension since I wanted to get the front all back together before this week so that I could lift the rear and start working on that (with the driveway on an incline I felt it would be unwise to try and lift the rear of the truck while the front was still on jack stands). The leaf springs were coming in today and I already had pretty much everything else I needed for the rear aside from the shocks which could be installed last. Unfortunately towards the end I realized the bolts for the upper control arms that also serve to adjust camber and caster had a couple at least that were kind of buggered up. I didn't trust whoever I take my truck to get an alignment done to do it properly with them in that state, nor for it to hold the alignment as well as it aught to, so I had to place an order for new bolts through Amazon and they wouldn't arrive until Tuesday.

So I decided to at least get as much put back together as I could and just wait for the bolts to get in so that I could button it up. I did leave the front shocks off though because I didn't want someone to decide that without the suspension loaded up and a wheel and tire in the way that they were easy pickings and steal them. Our neighborhood isn't bad, but you never know. So all that is left for the front is to install the UCA's, shocks, sway bar bushings and rods, and put the wheels back on. Then I can lift the rear and get that all replaced and get the air bags installed, though those might not come in until next week, but it's not a big deal if they do.

I guess it's a good thing I haven't sold my red H3 yet, I can drive that while the Alpha has some down time to do all of this work. Unfortunately a lot of it is waiting for parts to come in, but as of this Tuesday I should have everything I need. I'll be glad when it's done as I miss my V8. The I5 is fine for around town, right up until you need to actually get moving quickly, then not so much. But once this work is done there shouldn't be anything major left to deal with aside from the rear axle, or if something that has bene already fixed decides to break again. But that should be pretty unlikely.

 

[JPaul]

Didn't get anything done Tuesday other than taking some pictures in the morning. Here's where I ended up Saturday night:

I put trash bags over the knuckles to keep the rain off them, since they aren't fully back together yet I didn't want anything that normally isn't exposed to the weather to start rusting and cause issues for me later, like where the UCA ball joint slips into the knuckle, or the axle spindle/hub mating surfaces.

Here's a closer look of the passenger side so that you can get a better idea of what all is new:

Also to show that I did in fact take the time to clean off all the mud, dirt, and axle grease that was covering everything when I first started working on this. And if you look at the differential bracket you'll notice I marked the bolts with a yellow paint pen. I have started doing this any time I work on the truck. First is I don't mark them until they have been torqued to spec, so I know that if it has been marked it has been properly torqued down. Second, it allows me to quickly verify that everything is still tight. You really want to be checking everything periodically to make sure it's all still tightened down and this helps immensely. It's easy to see if something is coming loose because even the slightest amount of backing out will be readily apparent with the lines no longer matching up. You might not notice a loose bolt until it's too late, especially on longer and/or rough trips. The paint cleans off easily enough with a wire brush or a quick wipe with some acetone when you have to remove and reinstall them later on for repairs, then just re-mark them after torquing down, and the paint pens are relatively inexpensive. I have three colors to make sure I can easily see the marks, black, yellow, and white. Some people like to use the whole gorilla approach to tightening fasteners, but I have found that if you torque them to the specs provided by the manufacturer you almost never see them back out again later, and you all but eliminate the possibility of stripping something or even shearing off the bolt head or stud. And the next time you need to disassemble something you're not going to be fighting to get it apart if they've been properly torqued. You also have no idea if you're really tightening something enough when dealing with fasteners that require high amounts of torque. A good example are the axle spindle nuts, they need to be torqued to 190 ft/lbs which requires quite a bit of force, even when I'm using my largest torque wrench that has a 24 inch handle I have to really lean on it to get them that tight. So be smart and use a torque wrench and tighten to spec no matter what it is, though inconsequential things can just be tightened "good enough" though you still might be tightening them more than necessary.


Lastly, here's a picture of the remaining damage from the deer hit:

 

[JPaul]

Forced myself to work on the Alpha some more. I was hoping I could get the front completely buttoned up, but instead I only barely managed to get the passenger side mostly done.

I still need to set the resting height and tighten down the lower shock bolt, but I won't do that until I get the other side done and can get the front end to settle and onto some level ground.

It turned out the Fox shocks for the front of the H3 aren't quite long enough to allow full droop, which is pretty ridiculous. To fix this I slipped a half inch thick nut over the top mounting stud (probably a 3/4" nut)to act as a spacer. I know others have run these shocks OK, but I wanted to be sure I wasn't going to have any issues and ended up spending probably an hour checking extended vs compress length, determining the full travel of control arms to see how much shock travel I needed, if the position of the shock travel in relation to the rest of the suspension geometry was going to be ok or if it would be too low, etc, etc. Basically I knew I wanted to lower the shock down so that when I'm going over an obstacle and get full droop on one side (or maybe hitting a bump that puts me airborne) that it wouldn't try to pull the shock apart, and on the flip side I didn't want the shock to become the bumpstop during full compression. I'm fairly confident that I have it right where I need it now and should hopefully not have any issues. The Fox shocks have bumpstops built into them so the compression wasn't as much of a concern as was the shock being pulled apart during full droop.

You can see the nut at the top of the shock body in this picture:

 

[JPaul]

More shots of the finished work. I ordered a kit of grease fitting caps to keep them clean. I never liked the idea of it being possible to force some dirt in when greasing joints, no matter how little it may be. Having the caps on there will help keep the nipples clean, especially since this is going to be taken offroad again and through mud and water and dust and whatnot.

The driver side will go together quicker since I know exactly what I am doing now. Then the rear still needs to be dealt with. Unfortunately the pair of rear shocks were shipped separately not just from the front pair, but from each other as well. The final shock arrived Wednesday but when I opened it up I discovered that it had been damaged during shipping since they shipped it in just the box Fox packs each shock in, rather than placing it inside another box to help protect it. Something had punctured the box a couple times and put some gouges and possibly a dent in the aluminum shock body. Needless to say I do not want to use it, so I'm waiting for the seller to get back to me on how they are going to make it right. It's already taken over a week and a half for the rear shocks to get to me, and I do not want to have to wait another week and a half for a replacement or something. I can keep using the existing shocks for now until it is sorted out, but I really wanted this all buttoned up before my trip to Colorado next week. I doubt that is going to happen now though unless they overnight or two day me a replacement.

 

[JPaul]

Last night I cleaned up and repainted the Hunner skids for the leaf spring u-bolts and shocks, then today I was able to get the front torsion bars mostly adjusted and the last few things torqued down that needed it. I did realize though that I probably should not have added the nut on top of the front shocks, since the shocks are actually what serve as a travel limiter for droop. The way I have it now it's going to hit the upper control arm against the frame stop, but that is probably only meant to be a last resort in case the shock fails rather than for regular use. So I need to pull the front shocks back off and ditch the nut and re-install them. Though I might first lift the nose up again and see how everything lays out to determine if I really need to do this or not.

I spent most of my Saturday working on the rear suspension.

Before:

After:

The OME springs right now seem to allow a little too much droop, when I was bolting the axle back onto the springs I noticed that both the ABS sensor wires and the brake hoses from the body to the diff were getting over-stretched when I had the axle all the way down onto the springs. I had to unbolt the bracket for the brake lines at the pumpkin and unclip the ABS cables while I was getting everything together to prevent anything from being damaged. I'm hoping that now that the springs are torqued down and have some weight on them that they won't droop as much when fully unloaded. But if it's still an issue I will add an extension to the bracket for the brake lines at the pumpkin and figure out something with the ABS cables to prevent any of them from breaking.

I'm still really irritated about the one rear Fox shock getting messed up in shipping. I was hoping to hear more from them on Friday about getting it sorted out, but no such luck. I'll have to harass them again on Monday, but I highly doubt they're going to take care of this quickly at all.

Here's a pic of the damage:

While it might not look like much, it's certainly a lot worse than I want to accept. It's hard to tell but both of the tears in the plastic are where gouges are. The one that easily seen is a pretty good chunk and I'm worried it might have dented the body. The second one at the top is a thinner but still fairly deep gouge. I don't get why they thought it would be a good idea to ship the two rear shocks individually in the manufacturer packing. Seems like it would have been cheaper and easier to just throw them both in a box and pay one fee.

At any rate, I'll use the old shocks for now. For the rear I still need to wait until I change the oil in the engine and then take it for a short drive to let everything settle a bit, then park it on a level surface (which is not my driveway unfortunately) and torque down the leaf spring shackle bolts and check the torque on the u-bolts. The Hummer H3's do not have freely pivoting leaf spring shackle bolts, they do clamp the shackles onto the bushings so it does limit travel a bit. I think that will also help with my over extension issue, but we'll have to make sure. Then once everything is tightened down and adjusted it will be time to take it in for an alignment. I leave this Thursday for Colorado, so hopefully I can have everything finished up by Wednesday night, if not sooner.

 

[JPaul]

Finally got everything buttoned up. Changed the oil, removed the nuts I added to the front shocks to lengthen them (since I discovered/remembered afterwards that the shocks act as travel limiters), then drove down to the church parking lot to have a level place to finish up everything. When I got there I torqued down the rear suspension bolts first (you have to get everything sitting level with weight on it before tightening it all down since the shackles do not freely pivot on the bolts, instead it is the flex in the rubber bushings that provides the hinge action).

Then spent a while getting the front height correct with the torsion bars. I decided to go back to the stock height in the front because Fox apparently warns that cranking the front up with their shocks can lead to premature failure of them, plus it puts less stress on the CV axles and other suspension components. I'm more interested in longevity than gaining an inch of clearance anyway. If I can't compensate for a mere inch with better driving skills then I have no business offroading.


The Old Man Emu springs definitely give a taller ride in the rear, but I'm assuming that with some time they'll settle in a bit despite having been scragged already, plus once I get all my regular gear back in the cargo area they should sit pretty nicely. I did purchase the Air Lift load leveler airbags, but now that I see how high it sits I might not need them. At the very least I'm going to leave them off for now and see how everything settles.

Initial impression is that the ride is a million times better, but I still need to get an alignment and top off my tire pressure and drive it for a bit. The real test is going to be my commute tomorrow, the road I take is not the smoothest by any means, and while they have repaved a section of it, they seem to have chosen the nicest section to repave... With how busy the road is you'd think they'd have repaved it all by now, but instead they just kept cutting more sections out and (poorly) patching them back over, almost like they are just trying to make it terrible. I have been on dirt roads that are smoother.

At any rate, I'm glad to have this pretty much all finished. I still need to put the gas tank skid back on, and I should also put my UCP back on as well since I'll be taking it up to my parents house which is at the end of a dirt road. Not a terrible road, but not the best either. Better safe than sorry.

 

[Francis Hwang]

Clean rig. I like.

 

[JPaul]

Clean rig. I like.

Thanks! I try to keep it nice.

 

[JPaul]

So I am pretty darn proud of myself. Took the Alpha in this morning for an alignment and when I looked at the printout after they were done I was quite pleased with the before section:

Not bad for totally eyeballing where to set the alignment cams for the upper control arms, eh? Interestingly enough it was the toe that was out of spec, and I never actually touched the steering rack.

It drives so much better now. I don't get popping and grinding when turning anymore, and the ride is a lot smoother. The OME springs seem to be doing great, despite being slightly lifted from stock I didn't notice any degradation in ride quality. It's hard to say if they are better or the same as the stock ride, considering the springs on the Alpha were pretty worn out, and the shocks are still an unknown factor (one of them doesn't seem to be extending fully, I had to jack up the axle when hooking it back up, whereas the other side I had to compress the shock to reattach it), but in comparison to my red H3 which has fairly low mileage stock springs on it (maybe 45k or so?) and Bilstein 5100 series shocks (only a year or two old) it seems about the same or better. I'm looking forward to getting the Fox shocks on the rear and seeing how it does.

Speaking of those, the company I bought them from finally got their claim with UPS filed and the shock should be picked up tomorrow to go back, once it has been picked up they are going to send a replacement. Hopefully they actually pack it in something and don't do the same thing to me again.

Tomorrow I am going to put the gas tank skid back on, as well as my UCP. Here is a pic of the UCP from when I first made it for my red H3 that will now be going back onto the Alpha:

I built it from a truck ladder rack I had originally bought to make a roof basket with, but when I discovered how heavy the steel was, I decided to use it for UCP instead. It's 1" x 1.5" x 1/8" wall tube. I doubled up the section that protects the transfer case since it hangs so low and runs the risk of a pointy rock or a stick or something poking through and puncturing the transfer case housing. I've seen it happen on others that use the OEM UCP which is built in a similar fashion but uses fewer bars, so one guy made steel plates sized to weld onto the OEM UCP under the transfer case to protect it. The transmission pan sits much higher up so it's far less likely to be punctured by something that can fit between the rails, plus with the cross tubes anything that sticks through would likely get knocked over first unless I'm being stupid and drive through a pile of downed trees.

The UCP is pretty heavy, I can't recall what I estimated it at, but I think it's around 75 pounds or so. It's incredibly sturdy though, and has held up pretty well to me grinding over obstacles with it.

 

[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...

 

[jbsmwd]

how do you like those fox shocks? try to figure out which one to put on my 06 h3, Fox or Blistein 5100.

Wish GM made the Alpha a manual transmission......or diesel w/manual.

 

[JPaul]

how do you like those fox shocks? try to figure out which one to put on my 06 h3, Fox or Blistein 5100.

Wish GM made the Alpha a manual transmission......or diesel w/manual.

So far they're great. I'm not sure how much difference there is between the Bilsteins and the Fox shocks. I have Bilsteins on my red H3 and they've been great as well. The suspension on my Alpha is of course now much newer than on my red H3 which has about 107K on it, so it's hard to say what the differences really are. You can't go wrong either way though. I like the Fox because they are rebuildable and move the body to the sprung weight which does improve the unsprung weight, though with how heavy the axles and tires are it's probably not much difference, plus they are aluminum body shocks so that alone saves weight.

 

[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-fu 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.