H3 Long Travel Build

[Militaryman4455]

Originally Posted by Bebe

Thank you, and thank you for your service.

I was beginning to wonder - it's been so quiet

Considered posting some bewber pics to liven things up - but then I thought better of it.

I think this is just a moderately slow and some what tame build so people arent hard up to watch it... Im just interested to see someone build the hell out of an H3 and you seem to be going in the right direction.


Bewbs are always nice

[BellyDoc]

This is an important thread, Bebe. It will be referenced for years to come. You can tell already, just by the fact that your view to post ratio is almost 100:1. This is being watched. You started 9/8 and it's now 10/21. You've had over 1000 hits a week.

I've never heard of anyone else ever doing an upgrade swap on IFS that uses a cannibalized solid axle pumpkin. Correct me, if I'm wrong. Personally, I think this is brilliant. I'm sure I'm speaking for many people here that we're secretly hoping the conversion parts become a product line serviced by MFS so that IFS upgrade becomes the new garage shop holy grail.

Plenty of people have seen the limited improvements that come from bolt-on long travel kits. It's expensive. It's a dead end. No further improvements are likely to make a significant additional difference. On the other hand, fully custom built IFS only makes sense in the extreme conditions of desert racing. It's not likely to trickle down into the realm of full bodied vehicles because it's frankly cost prohibitive. This is a market that's wide open. We're probably watching the future here, and we know it.

If you're surprised by the lack of responses, just remember... it's not disinterest... it's stunned silence.

[Shadow man]

Originally Posted by Bebe

Thank you, and thank you for your service.

I was beginning to wonder - it's been so quiet

Considered posting some bewber pics to liven things up - but then I thought better of it.

You know, I am NOT showing this thread to my wife. She is really pushing hard to mod her H3.

I will hold off my opinions of the steering rack until I see it installed. I have an idea to take the stress off of it.

[Bebe]

Originally Posted by Shadow man

You know, I am NOT showing this thread to my wife. She is really pushing hard to mod her H3.

I will hold off my opinions of the steering rack until I see it installed. I have an idea to take the stress off of it.

Well I would love for you to share it. I don't know if you remember Hunner's fix for it, but that's where we are headed, adding a third mount near the breakaway.

When Rick was getting ready to pull it off the cross member, he called Jeff and I over to see that the holes in the cross member where the mounting bolts go through were way too big. The bolts flopped around in them. That's another issue that needs to be addressed for all H3 owners.

It appears as though GM went to great lengths to keep the mechanics of these vehicles very quiet, but is some circumstances it allowed too much movement making them weak or causing advanced wear. The mounting of the aluminum front diff with 3 bushings is another really bad idea for support, but good for a quiet ride.

Let us know what you're thinking, it would be timely. A-Arms are being fabricated Saturday and the steering rack is next.

[Bebe]

Thank you Doc and Military Man - I was hoping that was the case.

[billybob13]

nice.

[badlarry]

Very interesting,
Is that the lower A-arm mount structure we are looking at? If so, what will ground clearence b at ride hight and what are your compinsations for leveling the rear w the front? Really diggin it!

[Shadow man]

Originally Posted by Bebe

Well I would love for you to share it. I don't know if you remember Hunner's fix for it, but that's where we are headed, adding a third mount near the breakaway.

When Rick was getting ready to pull it off the cross member, he called Jeff and I over to see that the holes in the cross member where the mounting bolts go through were way too big. The bolts flopped around in them. That's another issue that needs to be addressed for all H3 owners.

It appears as though GM went to great lengths to keep the mechanics of these vehicles very quiet, but is some circumstances it allowed too much movement making them weak or causing advanced wear. The mounting of the aluminum front diff with 3 bushings is another really bad idea for support, but good for a quiet ride.

Let us know what you're thinking, it would be timely. A-Arms are being fabricated Saturday and the steering rack is next.

I don't know if you have the room, but a parallel center/tie rod link. That way the rack won’t be used to control the constantly changing alignment forces between both tires. With big tires, we all have seen what happens to a tie rod bar on a strait axle. So I can imagine the force that more so will be applied to the rack because of the changing arc of movement due to the a-arms. Those additional forces are not there with a strait axle.

No, it won't remove all of the forces off the rack, but should aleviate some of the forces that will go the the rack without it. It will SHARE the load.

Then I would leave the rack on the rubber bushings. I'm sure someone smarter than I can come up with something better.

Just a thought.

[Bebe]

Originally Posted by badlarry

Very interesting,
Is that the lower A-arm mount structure we are looking at? If so, what will ground clearence b at ride hight and what are your compinsations for leveling the rear w the front? Really diggin it!

Yes, the lower A-Arms will mount on the bottom of the cradle - upper A-Arms will mount on the bottom of the frame. The cradle also provides protection for the front differential, and as a mounting point for the skid plates.

Ground clearance at ride height from the bottom skid plate will be in the neighborhood of 11 inches.

We did a spring over on the rear last winter and raised the rear 5.5 inches. The front will net a 5.5 inch lift, so, if there are any adjustments to the rear it will be more or less fine tuning type stuff.

[Chrawler]

What BellyDoc stated is exactly true. As they say, sometimes no news is good news. I guess it would really be no replies are good replies? Wait....Nevermind, thats stupid. Anyways, I was stunned and have been following this thread since day 1. Great work! Genious.

[Bebe]

Originally Posted by Shadow man

I don't know if you have the room, but a parallel center/tie rod link. That way the rack won’t be used to control the constantly changing alignment forces between both tires. With big tires, we all have seen what happens to a tie rod bar on a strait axle. So I can imagine the force that more so will be applied to the rack because of the changing arc of movement due to the a-arms. Those additional forces are not there with a strait axle.

No, it won't remove all of the forces off the rack, but should aleviate some of the forces that will go the the rack without it. It will SHARE the load.

Then I would leave the rack on the rubber bushings. I'm sure someone smarter than I can come up with something better.

Just a thought.

So adding a center link.....I think there is enough room between the front of the housing and the cradle, and we were going to move the rack down and forward so that the tie rods are parallel with the knuckle mount. We are making a straight tie rod, I don't know what diameter we are using yet.

I like the idea - we'll look at it on Saturday.

[badlarry]

I don't know if i'm hearing correctly but are you discussing a solid center tie rod between the knuckles? Hard to disipher what people are thinking. I was just thinking about planes of travel and wanted to get a visual on something -so I went to check this out... http://www.howeperformance.com/desertracing-25rack.htm
Dunno if it would shed any light on anything, everybody here seems very compitent... Looks good!

[Bebe]

I think Shadow Man is referring to a center link set up like most of the larger trucks have - but that is coupled with a pitman and idler arm type set up with a steering box.

What you linked is more what I was thinking of as a solution and could very well be what Shadow Man was suggesting, was the custom Tie Rod Piece:



I'll get with Jeff and Rick and see what they think will work. I like the idea though.

[joselo]

I signed up because of this thread alone and check it at least once a day. I want to do something similar to my H3T except i'd like to go with a bigger diff and the knuckles i got off of a 2500hd. I also have the 14bolt and 6l90 from the 2009 silverado 2500HD. Right now the supercharged 402 swap is being finished, next step it to put the 6l90 in, then the rear diff then finally the front end. hoping to have a 3/4-1ton H3T.

Jose

[Bebe]

Originally Posted by joselo

I signed up because of this thread alone and check it at least once a day. I want to do something similar to my H3T except i'd like to go with a bigger diff and the knuckles i got off of a 2500hd. I also have the 14bolt and 6l90 from the 2009 silverado 2500HD. Right now the supercharged 402 swap is being finished, next step it to put the 6l90 in, then the rear diff then finally the front end. hoping to have a 3/4-1ton H3T.

Jose

Wow, that sounds amazing! You should start a build thread. I wanna see it.

[dane]

What a great build. Just read the whole thread and I have two small problems:

1) Bewbers were mentioned, but never shown.

2) You put those big tires on there and you are stuck with the "big tire crowd" for life!!

Dane

[hayner41]

do the pictures not work for anyone else?

[Bebe]

Photobucket wants me to upgrade Stay tuned...fixed.

[laproscopic]

I vote to use the gm rack and pinion modified with a better mounting mounting bracketry. You can always strengthen the rack and change the width of the rack by adding a tie-rod as was shared.

Of course my vote is rather selfish as i am currently deciding on the steering bits for my ifs. Aftermarket desert racing type hydro assisted Mechanical rack and pinion is $1500+ just for the rack. By the time the rest of the bits are added the price is north of $3000. If the gm 1ton r&p could by tweaked to work it would help keep the ifs builds in reach. New gm r&p's are a few hundred bucks new on ebay

[Bebe]

I am so glad you said that, because we have really struggled with this.

When the stock rack went back in, the hard lines were so close to the diff cover, we knew it was not going to work. My heart sank thinking about a $2,500.00 -$3,500.00 steering upgrade for a daily driver.

So we went on a quest - and I have to say this is one of those times when the Internet really pays off There are a couple of sites, powersteeringpros.com and o'reillys.com that show actual photos of the product. I first identified similar vehicles, with similar or higher payload, Curb weight, GVRW, turning radius's and track widths.

And we came up with 3 viable options - and went with this one:





The hard lines and fittings are on top of the rack, the pivot points are perfect for the widened stance of the H3.



Jeff's getting started on finishing up the mounts for the diff and steering, and has already gotten some work done on the upper and lower a-arms.

The worst is over.

[BellyDoc]

So what's that rack and pinion out of?

[Bebe]

Kia?


We'll say once we get it all dialed in...wanna make sure first.

[laproscopic]

Looks great and will probably work great

I'm all set to drop coin on howe rack and pinion steering but only because I don't want to spend the time to redo a failed system. One of the shortcomings of IFs in rockcrawling is that it has not been developed for use in rock crawlers for all these years and then all of a sudden Shannon Campbell builds this 4x4 super car that plain works. The only problem with his car is that he went and used all the best and most expensive parts for his front end. Dave Cole follows with an even more trick ifs car. Rick deremo also builds a $$$$. Now JR is also building uberbling ifs desert racer. Both of campbells ifs cars and jrs car use the exact same preassembled pro am front end components: same arms,same knuckles, sme joints, same steering rack, same geometry, SAme everything. Dave Coles car uses different outer joints but is basically the same.

Solid axle technology has had a decade of evolution and is still being tweaked. Ifs went from zero to hero overnight without any middle ground. Sure this bling trophy truck stuff works but would the lesser/cheaper parts work too?

I see plenty of desert guys running their 1/2 Ton chevy and ford pre runners with bone stock rack and pinion running pretty hard. I have seen modded fj cruisers running 35's and doing hard trails. I have seen total chaos long arm kits on tacos and fj cruisers that did well in the rocks. The rack and pinion seemed to hold up well in all these apps. I wonder if one could simply run the oe stuff with smaller ram assist and make it work with 40's.

[Bebe]

Thank you!

You know, Rod Halls H3 and Chad Halls H3 lived through numerous Desert Races, (BITD, Parker) including all the Baja's since the truck was first brought to market. Using the Stock R&P's in both Stock Full and Stock Mini classes.

I have over 116K on mine and have taken it on some pretty tough trails pretty regularly here in Norcal and Moab. Rod broke one in the Baja and I damaged one in Moab on Golden Spike. So while it's not made for hardcore KOH type stuff, reinforcing it with hydro assist may be redundant - because it is a gear driven hydraulic cylinder. Flaming River and Unisteer both devise custom R&P's for much less than Howe or Pro-Am.

We will be adding clevis mounts (inner) and custom tie rods with 3/4" heims on both ends. We'll just have to see if it works - I think it will be fine for the average "Trail Runner" application.

[laproscopic]

Originally Posted by Bebe

Thank you!

So while it's not made for hardcore KOH type stuff, reinforcing it with hydro assist may be redundant -

Perhaps

But if one were to build a beefy custom tie rod to connect both sides of the oe rack rams then perhaps one could run an assist ram to the tie rod to offer a greater push in the rocks. I wonder if it would hold. One shortcoming here could be that the extra ram may slow down the rack.

The nice thing about the howe And pro am racks is that they are strong enough to move big tires in the rocks and fast enough to keep up in the dessert