Some questions for anyone kind enough to respond:

- Opinion: Should I remove/de-chrome and re-chrome my OEM wheels (has anyone done this?), de-chrome and have painted, or put on some Black Rhino Armory in gunmetal. Why OEM wheels are in horrible shape.
- The closest Armory wheel size I can find is 17 x 9.5, 165x8, with either 6 or -18 (which I assume is offset?). Can anyone tell me which (if either) I should be choosing to replace my stock wheels?

- I'm in the northeast. My exhaust manifolds are at a point where they look like if I wait any longer they will be real bad to remove. Should I be thinking about doing this pro-actively?

- All the powder coated black guards are rusting in enough areas that it is bothering me now. Like the wheels, am I better off having them balsted and re-powder coated? Or do you all recommend a different approach (find good used, paint not powder coat,etc). I cant be the only one with this type of rust showing up...especially bad on the rock sliders, and getting annoying on the fornt grill guard.

Thanks in advance for any help, ideas, opinions, etc!

 

I've been thinking about the same things for my OEM rims. I am a bit of a purist so will likely have my rims re-chromed. My brush guard has some chips in the paint so media blasting and powder coating is in it's future.

 

If you are in the northeast- you should also look at your brake lines..... I have a house 12 miles from the Quebec border, at the very top of New Hampshire.... I feel your pain. I also have a house in Louisiana, this Hummer H2 I have down here, will never visit my house up there - regardless summer or winter- between the salt in the winter and calcium chloride in the summer for dust, its a Hummers worst nightmare for steel parts up there!
Check your exhaust manifold bolts at the heads- regarcdless of where you live, I bet some are snapped off- especially the end cylinders by the firewall..... I had a H2 i kept in storage up there and a H3 for a daily driver.... been through all the salt related issues.
Chris

 

The stock wheels don't look bad in black IMO. I had plasti-dipped mine originally and I liked the look but it doesn't last long here in the AZ sun. Any reputable shop would be able to clean them up (prep) for paint or PC.

Black Rhino Armory are extremely popular with the Jeep crowd and are even carried by some Jeep dealerships. There have been some concerns being a solid wheel that the brakes cannot cool and if going in the mud you have to manually scoop the mud out from behind the wheel-just saying what I've read.

Given the age of these things, your exhaust manifolds are likely already going to be a bear to remove so I would not make that a deciding factor. If you want to replace them with aftermarket headers then go for it.

Black guards sounds like you are referring to the oem brush guard (useless IMO) and step bars/rock rails. The rock rails would be worth trying to salvage if you can but the old tube steps I would ditch for something else. The brush guard depending on the condition could be cleaned up and coated with a bedliner like Rhino Liner. You can check out my build thread if you'd like, I did all my plastics, BG, bumpers, etc with Rhino Liner and it turned out incredible!

 

As far as the head bolts, if they are original, they are already gone, trying to remove them will guarantee at least a couple break. I would just let it ride until it starts leaking. The headache isn’t going away at this point, just push it down the road until they break off.

I had a couple of my driver side head bolts break off flush with the head and the shop screwed up the head trying to drill it out. Ended up buying a new head and just had a machine shop clean up the new OEM head and move the valves over, reseal etc.

Lesson learned next time I’ll just remove the head in the first place, much easier.

Passenger side on the other hand the bolt broke off flush to the manifold so I was able to grab it with visegrips and spin it out easy peasy.

Be sure to buy the ARP airplane grade head bolts to replace the broken manifold bolts. I have one side of my engine with the ARP and the other side with the GM updated bolts we’ll see how that works out in the long term...

 

If you have a broken exhaust manifold bolt, the driver side one closest to the firewall is the most common and also the hardest to extract if broken off flush. The others are not too bad to extract if they break. For the one I'd recommend the bracket Dorman sells (actually was invented by another company but I cannot remember their name) that bolts into an existing unused hole on the head and then provides a means to clamp the manifold back down to stop any leaking. Easy fix, works great, and a lot less aggravating than trying to extract that one. I did full stainless long tube headers on mine and that was the only bolt I was not able to extract or drill out so I'm using the clamp bracket.

 

IIRC that was the one of the ones on my driver side that bit the dust, frankly pulling the head was not really that hard and let me do some needed cleaning. I’m not big on doing bandaids, and ultimately everything I do is done with long term reliability in mind.

Do it once, do it right, the ARP bolts should last indefinitely.

 

Well i know I'm in the wrong section but, I've got sandblasted my OEM's and then got them powder coated in black satin, TOP result.