My Ongoing HMMWV Thread

[Ryan Ruck]

Frustrated doesn't even begin to describe it. LOL! But all that is behind me now.

Bob at the downtown Cincinnati title office was a big help and great to deal with. Didn't even bat an eye at the title change paperwork. She's officially a "pickup truck" now. Title change was a whopping $17 and plates were $31 (they expire the end of next month on my birthday). Was in and out in 15 minutes and that included BSing with Bob.

Couldn't be happier!

Took her out on a couple drives as soon as I got the insurance squared away and it was everything I expected it to be. One to go do some grocery shopping (so it is now officially a grocery getter ) and then for dinner. Drove great! Had it up to about 63-64 on the expressway but she doesn't have much more than that in her thanks to the 3 speed trans.

Insurance through State Farm, who was recommended by another HMMWV owner here in Ohio, and ended up costing $370ish for 6 months.

I did notice every now and then the steering wheel was a little hard to turn at a stop but it wasn't consistent. Going to have to double check the steering fluid...

A grand total of 4 strangers gave me thumbs up while out driving.

[Ryan Ruck]

Good Lord, I don't think I've ever had a vehicle that was tougher to rotate the tires on.

4 hours from start to finish to remove the tires so that I could change the geared hub fluid, change the transfer case fluid, and then rotate the tires since I had them off.

The tires were the toughest part by far. The lug nuts on these trucks are tighter than most other vehicles (likely by design so they don't easily come off by accident) and on top of that they had some rust on them since they were long overdue for rotation. My impact wrench was barely doing anything and constantly running the air tank out. Had to pull out the breaker bar. Made sure I put anti-seize on the lug bolts before putting the nuts back on.

Then lifting the 150 lb tires to take them off and put them on.

I see why that Rhino tire carrier I've got is so heavy duty now and am even more grateful I bought it.

[Ryan Ruck]

Well, I took my truck on it's longest drive since I've had it, 2 hours up to my friend Dave's up north.

The trip went well. Showed the truck off and answered questions he and his family had.

We got in to take it for a spin and I found it really hard to start. I knew it wasn't because of the glow plugs not firing since the engine was still above the temperature they'd come on. Chalked it up to being parked on his rather steep driveway since he's actually had that same problem with other cars. Got it started and took it for a quick trip where it drove totally normal. Came back, parked it on his street, and sat around his place for a bit BSing. Tried to start it up to leave and had it acting hard to start again even though the engine was cool enough to fire the plugs..

But that wasn't the real problem. While pumping the throttle to start it, all of the sudden I feel a pop and the throttle goes all the way to the floor with no resistance.

I was hoping the linkage cable had just come off the throttle since I had to take it off to turn up my injector pump (an easy way to get a bit more power out of the engine). No such luck Cable snapped at the pedal side.

So now I'm stuck 2 hours from home which a tow would cost a fortune for!

Dave and I are staring at the throttle cable trying to think of something when he mentions how much it looks like the 18 gauge cable we use for security system installs. So we pull some off his truck and sure enough!

Took a length of 18ga, run it through the cable's original sheath, tie one end to the pedal linkage, cut the fitting off of the end that connects to the throttle on the pump, drill a hole in the fitting, and tie the fitting to the 18ga. Works perfect as a temporary cable!

Made it home no problem. It did dawn on me about 1/4 of the way through the trip, it probably would have been good to put some lube on the 18ga to keep it from being sticky though it did operate reasonably smoothly for being a crude field fix.

I still need to figure out what caused the hard starting but when I stopped to fuel up on the way home, I noticed the cap was under a lot of vacuum. I'm wondering if the vent line is plugged... Going to take some investigating but, I thought the fix we came up with was pretty clever.

[MinutemanCO]

Nice work, MacGyver!!

Reminds me of a VW Beetle I had in college. Throttle cable snapped 20 miles from home in a Syracuse winter. I went around back to the engine compartment, pulled the cable back through the conduit and strung it outside around to the driver's side window. I held my hand out the window and pulled the cable all the way home. My hand was a little cold, but it worked like a charm.

Question, if you turned up your fuel pump, wouldn't it be pulling more vacuum through the system? Is the pump in-line or in-tank?

[Malsua]

Congrats on it's inaugural long distance voyage! Nothing like a big trip to bring out all the bugs.

When I started reading about the cable...I was thinking you'd run the cable into the cab and were "hand throttling" it the whole way. heh.

[Ryan Ruck]

Nice work, MacGyver!!

Reminds me of a VW Beetle I had in college. Throttle cable snapped 20 miles from home in a Syracuse winter. I went around back to the engine compartment, pulled the cable back through the conduit and strung it outside around to the driver's side window. I held my hand out the window and pulled the cable all the way home. My hand was a little cold, but it worked like a charm.

Question, if you turned up your fuel pump, wouldn't it be pulling more vacuum through the system? Is the pump in-line or in-tank?

Well, I'm still getting familiar with the fuel system on these things but it shouldn't. The injector pump is more for fuel metering, like a carburetor, and pressurization of the fuel to the injectors.

The fuel pump itself is mechanical and it's flow rate is unchanged.

The awesome thing about these trucks is that their TM's are far more detailed than the best Haynes or Chilton manual, almost down to the last nut and bolt. That's also the problem. There can be so much information to sift through it can be a challenge to find what you're looking for. But, thankfully a diagram of the fuel system was easy enough.



I suspect my problem is with the tank vent line or vent line filter. No idea how old that filter is or how much junk might be in it.

Congrats on it's inaugural long distance voyage! Nothing like a big trip to bring out all the bugs.

When I started reading about the cable...I was thinking you'd run the cable into the cab and were "hand throttling" it the whole way. heh.

Yeah, the first attempted trip up to his place a couple weeks back resulted in a pinhole leak in a coolant line about a third of the way into the trip which got me off my butt to replace all of the coolant hoses. Thankfully Uncle Sam came up with a cooling hose kit that made it easy to get them changed. Also gave me a chance to flush out all of that crappy Dexcool they put in it and replace it with standard coolant. I may go back and replace that with waterless coolant next coolant change.

That exact thought on the cable did cross my mind though! In fact, the truck even has a factory hand throttle in the cab for high idle (unfortunately, it runs through the same cable as the pedal). The existing cable was too short though. Plus the outer sleeve of the cable was still okay and the accelerator linkage was easy to tie the wire right to.

[MinutemanCO]

Well, I'm still getting familiar with the fuel system on these things but it shouldn't. The injector pump is more for fuel metering, like a carburetor, and pressurization of the fuel to the injectors.

The fuel pump itself is mechanical and it's flow rate is unchanged.

I gotcha. My mistake. You said "Injector Pump", my brain heard "Fuel Pump." I should have understood. My truck's injectors operate off a high pressure oil pump.

[Ryan Ruck]

Still working on the fuel tank negative pressure issue. Replaced the vent filter which wasn't really blocked. Blew some air down the vent line and thought I heard something break through. If something did break loose, it's probably now in the fuel tank. Took the truck for some errands and there was zero vacuum built up when I got home.

I've still got a new vent line, vent valve, and valve grommet to be delivered for replacement. Only about $35 total in parts so I figured why not get rid of the 22 year old parts. Going to be replacing the fuel filter and fuel/water separator shortly.



Today I decided to try and tackle my leaky front brake caliper since it was sunny and in the 70s today. Had the new seals and was ready to rebuild it.

Got the caliper removed and saw the dust boot was suspiciously dry which was not a good sign. This meant it was the differential output seal leaking.

Dug in deeper and as soon as I pulled off the half shaft, sure enough, gear oil that had built up in the output flange came out.

Already have the new seals and locknut on order.

Getting the old seal out was a royal pain. You'd have thought it was welded in there. Ended up destroying it to get it out since I was making no progress with a slide hammer.

Brakes look good otherwise and I guess I've got new seals and dust boots when they do go.

[Ryan Ruck]

Think I've got my fuel issues licked.

Was a short work day and the weather was great so I went ahead and lowered my fuel tank a little bit (my truck came with an access panel to the fuel tank) and pulled the old tank vent valve.

Found it packed with some sort of white sludge. No idea what it is but it reminded me of mineral buildup like you'd find in your faucet.



Replaced all of the vent line too in case it had sludge in it.

Also, since I had the tank down, I went ahead and replaced my fuel sender. When it would get below a half tank it would start bouncing all over so I had picked up a new one a while back to see if that would fix it. We'll see...

And lastly I got the fuel filter and fuel/water separator changed out since no telling when that was changed last.


Tomorrow and Sunday will be installing the differential output seal and putting the brakes back together.

[Ryan Ruck]

New Goodyear MTR tires arrived last week. Got them mounted on the 24 bolt wheels Friday/Saturday.

Then got the tires balanced and installed on the truck yesterday. Getting them balanced was a bit of an adventure! Had a lot of trouble finding a shop that could handle 37" tires! Ran into problems balancing one tire which led to other problems. Let's just say I was glad to have an extra wheel (2 actually).



Can't wait until the snow starts! Hoping we get some deep stuff this Winter!

[Ryan Ruck]

This just aired the other day. Watching it now.

https://www.velocitychannelgo.com/wh...s/1992-humvee/

[Ryan Ruck]

The weather today was absolutely great, if a little overcast, with the high today in the lower 70s and a nice breeze. Even right now it's 65!

Just had an urge to take the doors off the truck and go for a drive. But to where?

What better than to go pick up some steak to grill this fine evening and some good beer to drink! Thus a trip to Sam's for some nice cuts of meat and Jungle Jim's for some new brews.



First time driving with the doors off since early fall and it was indeed as enjoyable as I anticipated.

Hopefully soon the tops will be coming off!

[Ryan Ruck]

It's not all fun and games owning a HMMWV!

The land lady asked if I could use my truck to help clean up some fallen trees from our recent storm and help take down 5 dead ones near one of her houses. I said sure, but I get to keep the wood.


Figured I'd start with the smaller stuff...



The only thing I don't like about the Rhino tire carrier. With the tailgate down, you can't even get it closed far enough to be in line with the truck. Would be great if it were offset just a bit to allow that. Maybe a project far down the road...


Anyway, moving up in size a little bit. Wrapped my 44,000lb towstrap around it and shackled it to a D-ring:




Like it wasn't even there!




Waiting to get cut up when I've got more time and daylight.




Now for something a little bigger. Like a whole tree!




Will it pull?

Yep!




Had to give it a bit of gas getting up the last bit of the hill.

All the stuff came from way down there...




Didn't even have to shift the t-case to low or lock it up.


Decided to practice my camo techniques while I was at it...




Nailed it!

The 5 dead trees will be another day when my brothers are available and we can bring them down in a safe and controlled manner.

[Ryan Ruck]

Figured I'd share some fun I had over the weekend, on Saturday. June 7-12 was a Steel Soldiers rally out at Haspin Acres, Indiana.

I ended up going with 2 other local HMMWV owners, Dave and Mark, I've become friends with. One was unable to get his truck put back together following some work he's been doing on it. So our group consisted of 2 HMMWVs and an M1028 with a Banks turbo kit and 4L80E trans upgrade instead. The M1028 ended up getting parked once we got to Haspin anyway due to a brake line leak.

Drive out and back was about an hour and a half each way.

Said hi to a couple SS members, mostly ones Dave has known from past rallies but mostly hung out on our own. Happened to meet up with a couple other mil vehicles (CUCVs, 5 tons, and 2.5 tons) out on the trail. I didn't know my way around so I ended up following Dave most of the time. He didn't want to take any serious trails since he had just painted his truck. I ventured off alternate, more difficult, paths a couple times and the truck did awesome! Only had to shift into HL and L once each. Used the brake throttle modulation procedure once as well. Didn't even air down my tires from the 40/45 I have them at.

Not a single issue from the truck. It was unbelievably dusty there since we haven't had much in the way of rain in the last week or so. I now know what my brother was talking about when he mentioned the "moon dust" they dealt with in Afghanistan. It gets everywhere. Only used about 3/4 tank of fuel for the drive out, time on the trail, and back home.

Not too many action shots since everyone in our group was driving. Snagged a couple pics someone on SS managed to get of us driving though.

In no particular order...





















I should mention too, even though it looks like it in the pics above, the wheels on Dave's truck are not tan. They are actually black but whatever they were painted with seemed to really attract the dust.

Was VERY glad to have my pre-cleaner on my intake!

[Malsua]

Looks like fun! I wish I had one and lived in a place I could use one. Neither apply.

[Ryan Ruck]

Ugh, just realized my Photobucket pics are dead here. I'll update them when I get a chance.

Too tired now. Spent the whole weekend doing the exterior paint. Used correct military CARC paint from Sherwin Williams.

I can't take credit for the camo job. My buddy Dave, mentioned above, who has a lot of auto painting experience did it.


The green dried this morning before I added the additional 2 coats:




The new ECV style hood that I installed from Southern Metals was once tan is now green!




Here it is with the fresh camo Dave did. He literally just finished spraying the black and touching up part of the brown. That's why it's still wet:







We put the old windshields back in (I've got new ones, the old ones are very hazed and needed new seals) to block overspray of the black/brown into the interior.

Can't wait to start putting it back together! Going to wait until next weekend though after it's had a chance to fully cure. Will start unmasking it tomorrow after work.

[Ryan Ruck]

Sorry I haven't been posting more news but I've been very busy recently between work and prepping for my next major project for my truck that started today.

Swapping out the existing 6.2L/TH400 3 speed drivetrain for a 6.5L turbodiesel/4L80E 4 speed drivetrain.

Thankfully my previously mentioned local buddy, Dave, has a very nice home shop setup with a buttload of tools and a 2 post vehicle lift.



Just scratched the surface today. Fingers crossed everything goes nice and smooth!

[Ryan Ruck]

Well, my last day of vacation was yesterday and it seems like I've done less work today than when I was on vacation!

While we got almost all of the work done, unfortunately, the truck isn't 100% right now. The whole project was 2 steps forwards 1 step back.

At first everything seemed to be going smoothly but the first snag was the intermediate driveshaft I was sold being the wrong length. It works but doesn't engage the front driveshaft's slip yoke as fully as it should so I'll either need to get it lengthened or get the correct one. Then once we got everything installed, the engine would crank but not kick over. If anyone doesn't know, diesels are a PITA to start up when they've been run dry (or in my case had the fuel cut off). We cracked open a couple injector lines to bleed air just like you're supposed to but it still wouldn't fire. Dave eventually figured out the injector pump wasn't getting the voltage it should and we traced it to a likely break in the engine harness. The latest SNAFU was after finally getting the truck started and attempting to take it on a brief test drive, it would only drive forward in the default limp home gear of 2nd or 3rd but wasn't tripping a "Check Trans" trouble light. Dave has a friend who does transmissions and says this is almost certainly a sign the transmission isn't getting power or is missing a ground. So, something is possibly wrong with the transmission wiring harness I had to make.

Anyway, some video of the new engine at least running which is a very good sign considering it was purchased in 100% unknown condition.

[Ryan Ruck]

Good news! Dave did some troubleshooting Tuesday and found that the transmission was definitely not getting voltage on Pin E on the harness plug to it. Which is odd because the TCM has switched 12v power correctly and the switched 12v power to Pin E is just a splice on that. Guess it means I'll be opening up my harness to find the bad splice. I have the splices documented so I should know where it is.

There's also an issue with where we had to make a jumper wire in the engine harness to get the truck to start because of a break in that. In doing that we inadvertently killed power to the glow plugs and the cooling fan circuit so the glow plugs now don't work and the fan defaults to always on (it's activated hydraulically with fluid from the power steering system and fails on).

With a jumper wire supplying 12v to the trans though, it now shifts and drives correctly!



Talk about a massive increase in performance and drivability to the truck! It won't snap your neck like a built Duramax or Cummins truck but getting up to speed is pretty effortless now and, between the insulation and lower RPMs, the sound levels are way down. There's times when most all you'll hear are wind and tire noise! It should get more quiet when I insulate the underside of the hood and the back of the engine cover/doghouse. The turbo doghouse, for some reason, has worse insulation than the original one which had a heavy, insulated rubber backing.

Going to be bringing it home Saturday. Then it's time to start on fixing the wiring issues and steering linkage I found has a worn out pitman arm and tie rod end since I don't want to put it into a tree with my newfound power. Also have a boost/EGT gauge to install, upgraded ball joints to get in, heavier front springs to fix some front end sag I've gotten with my bumper/winch/etc., some new brake pads and shoes I got on sale, a higher speed rated electronic speedometer the newest HMMWVs come with, and an updated thicker steering wheel to install.

[Malsua]

Wow, how did they take these things to war? The up armored ones must have been 0 to never 60.