Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

Is this with stock Hummer wheels or after market?

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

Stock:p

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

How many miles on the wheels? Too bad you live in Hawaii, cost a fortune to ship them to Oregon. :(

So did the lift give you more wheel articulation, or was it mainly for looks?

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

I figured that but wanted to be sure.

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

Stock wheel 16 x 8

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

Less than 5000 miles, yeah I know shipping would suck. As for wheel articulation it's basically the same, I think I may have problems if I went to 37's though, now that would be mainly for looks.

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

Hey Sewie,

Another thing I found out yesterday wheeling with my H3 - freakin' engineering for those tie rods are horrible - I knew it was thin but it's also too #UCKING weak for a vehicle that supposed to be able to handle extreme off-roading!!

Remember the video of that H2 that was circulating the net? It was going over some small rocks and the front tires pidgeon toed into the center...well it happen to me yesterday!!





We yanked the tire to the right to pull the tie rod out, and was stuck on the side of the mountain for a few hours...




...a friend of mine took my rod to another one of my friends a few miles away and they welded back straight enough for me to drive it home.

Rod Hummer X Club Vegas Chapter President was with us and he said the H2's tie rod is no different, thin, thin thin!!

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

It's the lift sweet pea. Sewie and I have hammered our trucks and never broken a tie rod.

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

See if you can get some tie rod sleeves made.

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

Hmmm I heard from a good source who have seen it with his own eyes that both H3's and H2's tie rods broke. I have to agree though, the lift and larger tires doesn't make them any stronger - I heard about those sleeves, gotta try it out.

I still don't regret the lift, was clearing boulders with ease, in fact we had a stock H2 that was struggling big time up the hill, my H3 and another stock H3 crawled the muddy slippery boulders with ease....well, that was until my freakin' tie rod bent in half LOL!! ;)

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

They do break, but not as easily as on the H2. I've wheeled with a lot of H3's in all kinds of terrain and only seen one tie-rod bend so far (knocking on wood :o ). And he was hammering it up a pile of boulders. Limit your wheel spin and you have less chance of snapping one. And carry an extra - $100 well spent.

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

Darn. And I thought they were designed to snap so your diffs and axle don't break :giggling:

Anyways, so far seen one break on a relatively innocuous trail so I surmised that load & stress has to be coincidentally "perfect" :shhh: to explain why other people break diffs & axles while others break tie rods. I'm sure that the engineers have tested these components in the lab ad infinitum but not all load & stress in the real world can be duplicated in the lab. In any case they are to be had for ~$40 not $100 so use "Google" (but then again if you live in Hawaii, you do pay to live in Hawaii!).

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

Not if you get both parts. ;)

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

Looks sick how many inches of lift is that? and whats your ground clearance now?!

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

and the after-market wheel offset dont help none ;)

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

That's true too. Babhumv's had an offset didn't it?

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

Because of the tierod breaking and because FUC#ING GM is backed ordered until May on all their tie rods I decided to make this ride a "street" queen (for now).

Once my tie rod comes in, we will fab out a more heavy duty rod by cutting the ends and welding it onto a thicker rod - not sure if this would really help being that the rod snapped on the thread going into the outer tie rod - we may also weld a pipe over both the outer and inner tierod.

I am driving it though, since my right is welded I aligned my left to the right to spare the life of my tires, my steering wheel is off but at least my tires are straight.

Also, because of the soft springs that comes with the RANCHO lift the rear began to sag, it got about an 1 1/2 lower than the front and looked ridiculous. We replaced the stock shacle with a YJ shackle and brought the back up about 1 3/4 higher. Here's some pics of the shackles:



Here's a pic from the rear, you can see how the rear is now even with the front:


Since this is just a street ride now I went bigger on my tires adding Super Swampers IROK's 36 x 13.50's for a more aggressive look!

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

beware bud withh all the mods you have done they will not cover your t-case or tranny when it blows. You rough ride it with that set up and it will go so be real nice to your dealer. I have seen it with the 2's (2 trannies)

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

LOL I know bro, this is definitely not for rough riding...the good thing is the GM at the dealership here is a good friend and also a fellow off-roader (dirtbike rider) and I also wheel with the Shop Foreman and one of their lead techs.

I am being extra nice to my H3 though, but can't say I'm not itching to take it on the trails again!;)

Re: MY LIFTED H3!!!
 

Swampers look wicked. I know they are loud, and dont do well in snow, and look way over sized and kick chunks of rubber off as you drive down the road, but I love em. Rig looks sick Inked! :beerchug: