Been wheeling and building jeeps/trucks for more decades than I care to admit.
Sold the last rock crawler several years ago. My days of hanging upside down off a rock on indy in Penrose are mostly behind me, but the wife told me a year or so ago to find a rig we could still take into the back country for some wheeling and sightseeing. In the last year I have been through three different rigs, a nice discovery 2, an 8.1 liter suburban, and most recently a hemi commander. I lifted em built em and sold em about as fast as I dared. I actually made decent money on all of them , they just weren't what i wanted. Although the lifted commander came close but taking it the next level (33s or bigger tires) is almost impossible even 6 inches of lift and a lot of cutting barely gets you there. The quadradrive 2 system is pretty nice to wheel and I have had some seriously built jeeps in my time.

That brings me to this thing I bought. 2006 blinged out hummer h3, luxury package, adventure package (yes, skids locker, 4;1 tacse etc.) A low mileage (91K) california rig, so no rust, but poorly built and lacking in maintenance. I am apologize to those that like the chrome (no offense but taking the bling off the rig is a priority for wheeling in Colorado) besides the chrome vent cover fake louvre thingy was coming off on the way home I had to stop and remove it before it tried to kill me . I miss the hemi in the jeep, but I like the hardware on this truck and it's way easier tires under it.

The project to date.
took care of stumble at idle, thanks to info I found on this site
Removed the spray painted chrome gas door, it was nice....
removed the chrome fake louvre vent thingy on hood, made blanks and braised the holes shut with silicon bronze, sanded and body filled, finished in four coats of raptor liner and four coats of satin clear, left the drain holes
gave the holes in roof from broken roof lights the same treatment
removed broken non functioning roof mounted light bar
removed broken half functioning stereo, rewired factory loom to functioning condition, new stereo to be delivered this week will utilize monsoon system.
removed the blingy 20 inch fuel wheels (sold em), installed decent oem wheels with new 33 inch bridgestone duelers
2 inch lift
fabricated and installed hidden receiver/winch mount behind grill (I actually have a new design that I will fabricated this next week, same look and function but will be a bit cleaner as I used scrap in the shop for the first one, 2x2 1/4 inch steel, bolted into the frame using 1/4 inch steel angle and grade 8 hardware. When i refabricate I'll post pics, its clean and would be easy to replicate,
removed interior and detailed the sh.. out of it
replaced broken windshield trim
repaired leak in sunroof
removed blingy nerf bars (rock catchers)
rebuilt front end,
parts for custom cold air intake are on their way
removed a rats nest of unnecessary wiring, I'll post a photo, it's a little crazy

after all that the rig is starting to look respectable and I actually enjoy driving it, it runs decent, I picked up 4 miles per gallon just rebuilding the front end and getting the alignment sorted out. I surprised it getting over 18 running the hills in Colorado, I live at 8700 feet.

What I bought:



Hood vent removal:



hood refinished:



for those of you that do your own work on the hummer this is for laughs, all this junk was just installed and hanging around, everything from crappy lighting to extra stereo stuff....



winch point installed:



nearing competion:

 

I approved your thread, not sure why it wasn't to start with?

Welcome to HF. Good job on nixing the Rimz.

 

thanks doc, but you didn't edit my typos

 

Welcome to HF

 

thanks, nice to have resources when working a new project