HMMWV Humvee M1123 Build Thread

[Vapor Trail]

It shouldn’t take 5,000 pages to be a service manual for a vehicle. The wasted space in these manuals with over complex numbers and descriptions is exactly what I would expect from our government. In a place where all it needs to say is 5/8”-11 bolt 4.5” long there’s a paragraph of nonsense.

 

[Vapor Trail]

Some of the internals were damaged and not replaceable so I had to straighten them but they’re in good shape now!

 

[Mullaney]

It shouldn’t take 5,000 pages to be a service manual for a vehicle. The wasted space in these manuals with over complex numbers and descriptions is exactly what I would expect from our government. In a place where all it needs to say is 5/8”-11 bolt 4.5” long there’s a paragraph of nonsense.View attachment 906490

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@Vapor Trail ,

It isn't really funny, but I had to laugh. No, there is no reason in the world for a lot of the pages. Just imagine how it would be if the TM's were to be used in other countries. It would easily be ten thousand pages. Everything in all kinds of languages...

There are dozens of pages with warnings about not being a dipstick and mashing your fingers and all that rot - even in the English Only TM's.

 

[Vapor Trail]

The internals and bearings on the diffs were in great shape so I just painted them and replaced all the seals. I used stainless bolts for the covers. On YouTube they preach PVC tool for replacing seals and it does work for output side but that black input tool in the maintenance kit seems mandatory for the input seal and works great. Also it’s necessary to have a block of wood and real big hammer because one you get it started with the plastic tool it never goes in straight because the seals are much larger than the hole. Hit the wood on one edge and it straightens it up. The cage works wonders holding everything still while working on it. I buy a few extra seals for the diff and brakes because invariably I end up messing one up and that saves you from waiting a week for more.

 

[Vapor Trail]

So I did a LOT of research to figure the best paint job I would like on this thing and what I came up with was satin finish on the body and outer metal parts like bumpers and cage and glossy black on the chassis and suspension parts. There's really no good way to use automotive paint to get satin because you have to use gloss paint and cover with satin clear which is damaged easily even if you wash it wrong. I haven't got to the body yet but I chose Carboline paint which is a high grade of industrial paint we use at work a lot. You don't have to do it this way but this is what I did. I had everything sandblasted to bare metal. The profile on the cage was more than I liked so instead of doing a two coat system I did a three coat system because coat one of zinc enriched primer is more sandable than the epoxy but it is very hard to deal with. The other two products worked very well. The top coat is very UV resistant so with this system it should never ever rust and it won't fade in the sun either.

Coat 1 Carbozinc zinc enriched primer after full sandblast
Coat 2 Carboguard 890 2 part epoxy
Coat 3 Corboxane 2000 2 part UV resistant Urethane

Pics to follow

 

[Vapor Trail]

 

[Mogman]

AWESOME!!!

 

[Vapor Trail]

The geared hubs, wow, what a bucket of fun that was. I’ll try to remember all the things I hoped to pass along. There’s almost no information on the interweb about how to break them all down. I tried several methods to get the spindle bearings off and it boiled down to cut it off with a cut off wheel and at the last minute before you’ve cut into the spindle hit it with a hammer and chisel. I cut one and it had to be replaced. I built a jig to hold it the whole mess while assembling and it made life much easier. I borrowed a bearing heater and it was freakin amazing. I’m not sure what kind of voodoo that happens but in 90 seconds the whole thing is equally hot and it drops right on. I made new stainless vent line brackets. My hubs took about ten plastic spacers each. There’s a thin metal spacer in there that’s tapered on one side. I’ve seen someone post assembly instructions online that seem wrong to me saying the taper is up away from hub casting. This seems wrong to me because the taper is designed to cleared the rolled edge of the metal and the taper should point down. I measured it with a micrometer and if you install taper up the spacer sits noticeably higher and would have an air gap under it . The TM does not address this either. The PPE hub covers were reasonably priced and look better than stock. I was going to make my own but writing tool paths and tooling setup made it too much trouble. I wanted the raw to coat a different color but they’re on back order so I just got black. Doing this on the weekends and nights it literally took months by the time it gets, taken apart, acid bathed in oven, and so on. they turned out great though. All new bearings, races, seals, and fasteners.

 

[Vapor Trail]

The other gauges I had weren’t compatible with the motor so I returned them and got speedhut gauges. Before I took apart the dash I sat in the correct seat and traced where the steering wheel was on the dash so today I’m laying out the locations and drilling the holes. Getting ready to prep the body for paint

 

[Vapor Trail]

 

[Vapor Trail]

 

[Vapor Trail]

So for the fuel system I heard different things from different people but I didn’t want to take any chances with anything that wasn’t sufficient so I used Aeromotive Phantom 340 Apex 450 with regulator and filter. After it was all said and done the fuel system listed above plus the tank and hoses and fittings was over $3K. I had to trim some of the existing baffle and I made my own stainless mounting plate with rivnuts for the sender. I couldn’t find anywhere good to mount the regulator filter so I made this stainless bracket for that. I’ll trim the factory hard fuel
Line off like Swaptime Mitch says on YouTube. Also, this system requires the height extension kit

 

[Vapor Trail]

So I wanted to make the exhaust as quiet as possible so over the last year I called Borla six times. Their stuff seems to be best and every single time they said no matter who I talked to size matters. The bigger the quieter. No matter what their sound description says or their sound rating nothing matters but size. I wanted to use their 39” trophy truck XR-1 because they said it was the quietest but I couldn’t fit it in there so I went with 24”. It barely fit. The headers are 2.5” and everyone recommended 3.5” for a single 450 hp situation so I went 2.5 to 3.5. No one makes a concentric reducer that size so I bought one 2 to 4 and cut it down which worked well because it was super thick. The Vibrant elbows were not super concentric but I used them anyway. I’m going to wrap all this in titanium exhaust wrap

 

[Vapor Trail]

 

[Vapor Trail]

I bought several elbows and three pieces of 2.5” and 3.5” pipe. I didn’t use a single inch of the straight sections of pipe

 

[Vapor Trail]

So for the drive shafts, I’m using the 2wd/4wd transfer case that came with the engine and 8 speed. I had driveshafts made and the guy really seemed to know what he was talking about and care about the project. I told him what I wanted and when I came back to pick it up it was all different. You can’t do what I wanted which is just cut and splice the existing ones up because you would have two slip joints on the same section which is the middle section so he put the piece coming out of the from transfer case a slip joint and then it runs all the way through the carrier bearing rigid. The joint is now in front of the carrier. It’s short but the U joint is still only 8 degrees.

 

[ohiohmmwv]

What was the donor vehicle you pulled the engine, transmission, tcase from?

 

[Vapor Trail]

I didn’t take it out of a vehicle, I got it from a salvage yard. The 6.2s come from Chevrolet, GMC and Cadillac trucks and SUVs on the upper end of the option list. Talk to whomever you get your harness from before buying because some people can’t make AWD transfer cases work with the computer and half of those vehicles come AWD