06 H3's Squeakin H3 Build

[jakesz28]

Yep, I still have it. I will be coming back out to Moab soon hopefully. I just chewed up the bushing on the rear output shaft of the transfer case. So not planned but a good time to upgrade to a 4 to 1 transfer case. I am currently in the process of buying a new house and will be moving in early April. We close the first week of March.

I started reading your motor swap thread. But have not got to the good stuff yet. If I had been around during that I could have possibly helped with a mail order tune and some of my 5.3 swap experience. I had swapped a 5.3 into my 91 K2500. I have a dana 44 front axle here that Im tempted to scrap because of the move.

 

[Cyrus Avey]

06H3 you have done an awesome job. I have been reading stuff about your truck for a long time brotha!!!!! Keep up the good work!!!! I would love to be on your level one day!!!

 

[H32NV]

Just checking back in after being busy with work for a while. Wow dude, you have come a long way. What a great project. Hope to see you again in Moab soon

 

[06 H3]

Thanks everyone! I appreciate it. While I am here I will give an update. I've been busy lately with a new job and after 7 1/2 years of ownership squeaky is not a DD anymore. I got a company car so the average 20k miles a year I have been doing the last few years will decrease quite a bit. I miss driving it!!!!

I did go to hammers but ended up not making it there. :roll: Last year when I went to the KOH race I blew my motor on the way there...this time I had a wheel bearing seize up on the way out there. I ended up getting to a gas station around 10pm and was by myself and needed an extra set of hands. Luckily a random passer by has seen my build before online noticed the hummer and stopped to help out. The warn hub melted and welded itself to the hub since it got so hot so I needed the extra hands to pry while I pulled. We got it out and sure enough the nut was welded to the spindle. at that point I was screwed. I had spare bearings and a spindle but the hub was no good seeing it was melted on there. At that point the guy left and I ran into a local in the middle of no where. This local came up to me and was a nut job who ended up giving me a hard time, along with his history that he told me, involving being in jail since 11 got out a year ago at 32 and now has a kid and lives in a tent, I decided to get the **** out of that town and get towed home. The drama continued as he left to go get a friend to "help" me aka probably try and steal my tools and **** while I was working on the hummer. At that point I called AAA and had an hour and a half wait so I had another run in with the nut job but luckily he friend wasn't around. At least I made it home. From what it appears to be is that I got water in the hub on my snow run dried it out and it seized up.

At this point I could have put in another 6 lug hub but I decided it was time to make the leap to the 8 lug hub swap for the front 44 and put in my rear axle the Eaton HO72. The Eaton is the big brother to the 14 bolt and is beast. Ive gone over it before but I will do so again. It has a removable 3rd member like a toyota or ford 9in, factory 5.14 gears, removable pinion support, load bolt. All things that make these axles live up to 44in + tires and over 500hp, that seems to be the common theme on pirate. I have a disc brake kit in the garage and ready to be put on. Its a 14 bolt disc kit that will need some modification most 14B/eaton kits bolt in but my year eaton has 3/8in shorter spindle so I need to trim down the spacers 3/8 of an inch. I also have a grizzly locker on order for the Eaton as well. CJ is messing with the hubs right now, the current issue is that the hub OD is bigger then the tone ring ID for the ABS so hes gotta have the hub machined down a tad (within safe limits to avoid strength loss) and make the ID of the tone ring a tad bigger.

Now the front 44 is a whole other story. When going to 8 lug the hub pushes out the mounting surface roughly an inch. This would be fine with old school rotors and brake calipers but I want to retain the H3 calipers. Main reason is that the H3 calipers are desirable and will stop much better then the old school single piston calipers. The issue is that the rotor needs to be 8 lug, be the same thickness and have the rotor hat be roughly an inch deeper. Finding this was a pain in the ass, I spent hours on summit and autozone just checking every 8 lug rotor under the sun and I think I found one that is close enough to work with an H3 caliper. 2002 rear chevy avalanche 2500 rotors. 29mm thickness while the H3 is 28mm, the diameter is within a half an inch and hat depth is .95inches deeper. This will get me in the ballpark and I can make slight modifications to the brake caliper brackets from there.

The reason I have to convert the front from 6 lug to 8 lug is to match the rear bolt pattern on the new axle. I will pick up cheap 8 lug 16in steelies for now and use them with my 37x12.5r16 Trxus MT until I switch over to a 17. At that point I will run H2 rims.

Little things like keeping the width the same is easy the eaton is 65 WMS the 44 with 8 lug hubs will be 69 so I will run 2in spacers out back.

I have parts coming in every few days but hopefully this is will all be taking place in the next few weekends. I am sure there will be issues since we have yet to see a DIY 1 ton rear axle swap that retains ABS. I know it can be done though, Dynatrac axles made it work for Recon and Dana 60 H3 made it work for him but without ABS.

The plus side is I can take my time now that this thing doesn't have to be driven to work every day.

Heres a pic of it with the old drums off and mocking up the disc brakes...it looks like a semi truck axle!

 

[4speedfunk]

Here's some shots of the Dana 44 front hubs (6-lug vs 8-lug). You can see from these, where the extra 1" comes from...the 8-lug hubs have the flange shifted further outboard. Notice however the "barrel" portion of the hub is the same...

 

[Mb30sdl]

So u finally came around to 8 bolts, scrap that pos 44 and jump to 60s finally. And ditch that warn cheap hub locks- dynalocks is only way to go.

 

[06 H3]

I never had an issue with the warn hubs so they will be used again. The issue was a seized wheel bearing. The D44 is staying im converting it to 8 lug. The rear end will be stronger then a D60, D80, and 14 bolt. If I have issues with the front then I'll go to a 60

 

[USMC_TOP]

Sounds pretty solid to me. Very nice sir

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[scoreh3]

So that's why I haven't seen Squeaky or you at your old job , I thought it was my new later hours . Well I hope you are having a good time at your new job .

 

[Woodtick]

I sprinkled some holy water on your hubs while they were in my garage,you shouldn't have any problems with this set.

 

[JPaul]

I sprinkled some holy water on your hubs while they were in my garage,you shouldn't have any problems with this set.

Did you have to use gloves so that you didn't get burned? :giggle:

 

[Woodtick]

Did you have to use gloves so that you didn't get burned? :giggle:

That was funny.

 

[JPaul]

I have my moments.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

 

[4speedfunk]

Rear hubs are done...

This was a bit more complicated than the typical front ABS hub install....but we got it done. Now it's up to 06H3 to build on these and come up with a way to make the rest of it work. No fear!

 

[06 H3]

Thanks again to CJ! He really is a huge help on this, without him I would be screwed. Around here if I dont walk in the door with a contract and a 1 million dollar project machine shops just laugh. He is able to help out the little guy by thinking outside the box and getting it done.

So now its time to get the rear end under once I get the last of the parts. I got my grizzly locker installed last night, went to the junkyard and picked up 2 sets of 14 bolt shafts so they work with the grizzly locker. disc kit is here, just need brake line stuff, the hubs, and some time.

 

[scoreh3]

We are getting closer to seeing the 06H3 edition of the Hummer H3 that GM should have built . Keep up the great work Chris and to all of you that are helping a big thanks too.

 

[06 H3]

Thanks. I appreciate it! I gotta get my rear axle under for mock up and make sure the gas tank isn't in the way that would be depressing

 

[06 H3]

Heres an update, the Eaton HO72 is under the truck! It does fit, I thought I would have issues with it clearing the gas tank but it does indeed clear! Getting the rear 10 bolt out of the truck was easy, gotta love leaf springs for that.





I also got the 8 lug hubs started. This was supposed to be easier but the specs online were wrong so I had more work to do. The old H3 6 lug rotors needed to be turned down to get them to fit over the 6 lug D44 hubs. According to specs online the 8 lug new school 14 bolt rotors should fit as well. Sure enough they didn't. So I had to turn down the hubs and I did that with my DIY Lathe, put all 4 wheels off ground, put it in 4 low and let them spin slowly while I sit there with an angle grinder.

[video=youtube;003IHz_UfnQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=003IHz_UfnQ[/video]

As for specs on the 8 lug rotors I wanted to keep the H3 calipers, they were retained when doing the SAS because they will stop much better then the old school D44 brakes since they are dual piston. The Caliper brackets were made for an H3 rotor to slip on and run H3 calipers so I had to follow the specs, H3 rotors are 28mm new, these rear 8 lug chevy rotors on new school 14 bolts are 29mm thick, the hat depth is about an inch more then the H3 ones which is perfect because the 8 lug hubs push out the WMS an inch or so on each side, and the rotor diameter is within a half an inch, caliper bracket mods will still be made but it will minimize the changes needed. Wheel studs are chevy 2500 unit bearing studs off an 08.





The rear I got a 14 bolt disc kit and will be using it on the eaton as well as SRW hubs that I had turned down and tone rings were put on it for ABS. I got a grizzly in back with the 5.14 gears.



I still need to do caliper bracket mods up front, waiting on the new wheel bearings for the rear, brake lines for the rear and 8 lug rims. o and paint the axle...and hide that overspray from the awesome looking red 3rd member.

 

[Bigunit]

Great work Chris!

 

[4speedfunk]

Awesome. Love the home-made lathe! Don't forget you will need some new 14mm lug nuts too. Looking forward to seeing the finished 8-lug swap.

 

[06 H3]

Yesterday I did some more work. I got the rear axle all welded up, painted, U bolts tightened down. The rear end is basically done minus mounting the hubs, mocking up the ABS sensors and brakes. I also worked on the front a bit as well. I tore it down, cut the caliper bracket. I stopped there. I need more gas for the welder and a 2nd set of hands to hold things while I mock up. Next weekend I will do all that.

Here are some pics of the axle.







Here are some pics of the caliper bracket I cut down, it needs to be moved inboard a tad and out an inch or so. The plan is to mock it up and use some flat stock to tack and keep it in place then plate it, strengthen it with overlapping metal and weld it up. I believe the tip I have seen is to put a quarter in between the caliper and rotor so it can be spaced out a tiny bit. I will talk with CJ on that. Other then that theres the progress. I will start friday and I have some more parts in the mail.

 

[06 H3]

Got some more work done this weekend. It's not finished but I'll get details tomorrow

 

[3Hummers]

Teaser post

 

[06 H3]

Progress was a bit slower this weekend. I cant say it wasn't because work wasn't getting done but it was because of problems.

First thing was that I needed to get the new bearing races in, I have a bearing race driver set but these bearing races are HUGE! I didnt have any pucks big enough. After trying many different methods, using a hammer and punch, and try to freeze the race overnight, nothing was working, these things were a bitch. I ended up using my press and I welded the bearing race to some extra 2in .25wall DOM tubing, what a waste of good tubing but it was the only tubing that fit nicely. Got them pressed in, another thing I wanted to do was drill out the stud holes for 9/16in studs, originals were 1/2in. 14 bolt disc kit studs have part #s all over the net and easier then searching for one with the right knurling for the 1/2in stud for the hub. I raced down to grainger 30 minutes before they closed, they are about 25 min away and made it before they closed for the weekend to get the drill bit. I wasted hours going to every other place that didn't have the bit.





Saturday I assembled some parts then found out my buddy's drill press was too small, the chuck wasnt big enough for the bit so I had to go to my other buddy's house and use his. He's about 45 min away each way, killing more time. Got that done but after finding out the capacitor went bad on his drill press and tracking down a new one, hung out for a bit and headed home then it was raining saturday night and didnt feel like working in the rain...



I know the race isnt fully seated in this pic...

Then Sunday I mocked up the brakes. I specifically ordered straight brackets with no bends in them. The Eaton axle depending on the year has a spindle that will work with the 14 bolt disc kit with no mods and then ones that will work with mods. Mine of course didnt work without mods, thats why I ordered the straight ones, so I can space mine in a tad more since the spindle is a tad shorter then the newer Eaton's. I used washers to do that. Eventually got that mocked up after trial and error.





Brake brackets are positioned in a way to work with the e brake brackets I have.



Then I went to mock up the abs sensor and found my next issue.



I found out the rear sensor sticks out further then the front, I could buy fronts but even then it still hits the rotor hat.





So now I gotta figure out how to get room in there to fit the sensor. I have a few ideas in my head right now. I can find other rotors or see what work it will take to do a slip on rotor vs mount it from the back.



If I try slip on I will have to return those studs and find ones with a knurl closer to the bottom of the stud.

When its all said and done I will hopefully have a formula or idea that will make life easier for people going forward! 8 lug front hasnt been touched, its ready for mock up and welding but been busy messing around with the rear axle. A lot of thing have been learned so far for future people it will take a lot of guess trial/error out and can be applied to 14 bolts for sure and possibly other rear axles.

I could of been driving this already if I swapped over the ****ty old dana brakes, said **** the ABS, etc but I want to keep it all.

 

[4speedfunk]

If I try slip on I will have to return those studs and find ones with a knurl closer to the bottom of the stud.

DING DING! We have a winner. I think the "slip-on out-board rotor mod" is sort of a must-have to free up some room on the backside to get the sensor in place. I know its true on the fronts, and probably a similar situation on the rears. You might want to do that anyway to get the rear track width a closer match to the front. BTW...what is the WMS-WMS width front & rear?

I got a front D44 assembled and ready to go into my Burb. Its got 8-lug hubs with ABS rings but, it is still using the stock Dana rotor position. Just like your rear axle...I'm not sure I will be able to get the sensors in place. Figured I would deal with it after I get everything else done.