On this episode of Dirt Every Day presented by Tire Rack
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MotorTranscript
00:00 (rock music)
00:02 - This week on Dirt Every Day,
00:11 we're out here in the desert
00:13 with a government surplus Humvee.
00:15 - I'm a stunt man, woo!
00:18 (rock music)
00:20 Woo!
00:28 (engine revving)
00:31 (rock music)
00:44 - We are out here in the hot desert sun
00:47 east of Barstow, California
00:49 at the GovPlanet Desert Facility.
00:52 Now what we're doing here is we're picking out
00:53 our next vehicle for Dirt Every Day.
00:56 GovPlanet is an online web-based auction house
00:58 where they sell a lot of military surplus vehicles.
01:01 Things like old two and a half ton trucks
01:03 all the way up to giant tank haulers.
01:05 But today I'm taking home a Humvee.
01:08 A Humvee is the vehicle that started
01:09 the entire Hummer brand.
01:11 You know the H1, which this is a representative of,
01:14 H2, H3, and then they kinda went defunct.
01:18 But the military Humvees have been around
01:20 for like 20 to 30 years now
01:22 and they're starting to kinda show their age
01:24 and a lot of them are coming up for auction.
01:26 And if you would wanna buy one, you can bid on these.
01:28 They range in price from eight to 10 grand
01:30 depending on how good the truck is,
01:33 how many people bid on it.
01:34 And the one we picked out,
01:36 it's a little rough around the edges
01:37 but I think it's gonna be perfect for what we wanna do.
01:39 So I'm gonna load this up, we're gonna haul it home
01:41 because they're not street legal.
01:42 Dave's gonna come up to the shop,
01:44 we're gonna see what type of upgrades we can fit on it.
01:46 And then we're gonna go out to the desert
01:48 and see just how much abuse can a Humvee really take.
01:50 (rock music)
01:53 (engine revving)
01:56 (upbeat music)
02:00 - You got a Humvee.
02:13 - Yes, I got us a Humvee.
02:14 - This thing's rad.
02:15 - So GovPlanet sells a lot of different Humvees.
02:17 Some are super nice
02:18 and some are a little rough around the edges.
02:20 - This is a rough one.
02:21 - Yeah, this is a little rough.
02:22 But I think they know that we're gonna go beat it up.
02:25 Fiberglass front, aluminum back, 37s
02:28 which I think we need to go bigger.
02:30 I don't think it has locking diffs
02:31 but it does have portals.
02:33 So it has lots of ground clearance
02:34 and it's independent front and rear.
02:36 Much like you and I, Dave, we're independent guys.
02:38 We just kind of do what we want.
02:40 - I do what my wife says.
02:41 - All right, I'm an independent guy
02:42 and you do what your wife says.
02:44 It looks a lot heavier than it really is.
02:46 - This thing's cool.
02:47 - Yeah.
02:48 - I'll bet you it jumps good.
02:49 - I bet it jumps good
02:50 but I don't know that it lands good.
02:52 - Starting it up.
02:53 - Up the hill, Dave.
02:57 - I've never driven one of these before.
02:59 Oh boy.
03:00 - It's nice and wide
03:09 so it's pretty stable on side hills.
03:11 It has lots of six two diesel power.
03:15 - That's wide open right there.
03:17 - Yeah.
03:18 It's going to be even better
03:19 when we put bigger tires on it.
03:20 - Yeah.
03:21 It drives pretty good.
03:22 It's like a big go-kart.
03:23 - Yeah.
03:25 We'll probably have to put about 15 cup holders
03:27 in to fill it up.
03:28 - Steers kind of good.
03:30 - Yeah, it steers really good.
03:32 - It seems pretty normal.
03:34 - I think there's a squirrel stuck in the rear brake
03:36 but I think it's pretty...
03:37 - It's going to work good.
03:38 - It rides good.
03:39 - Can I go out left?
03:40 - Go straight.
03:42 Get it!
03:43 Bad guys are after us, Dave.
03:44 (upbeat music)
03:47 - Woo hoo!
03:50 - Do you think your landlord gets mad when we do this?
03:53 - As long as you don't hit the grapes.
03:54 No, turn left, turn left.
03:55 - I'm excited to work on this thing.
03:59 I've always wondered if they were cool or not.
04:02 - It's really wide open.
04:02 It fits in the door.
04:04 Clear on this side.
04:08 Straight back.
04:11 (upbeat music)
04:14 That'll do.
04:16 - Awesome.
04:20 - What do we do first?
04:23 - What?
04:24 - What?
04:25 - What do you want to do?
04:26 - I want to just take a bunch of stuff off of it.
04:28 - I want to do a roll bar.
04:30 - You want to put a roll bar?
04:30 - Yeah.
04:31 - Let's see if we can just remove all of that.
04:33 - Yeah.
04:34 - Put some coolers in there.
04:35 How big a tire?
04:36 - 54s.
04:38 - That's it?
04:39 - Yeah.
04:40 - I think we should be moderate
04:41 because we don't really want to re-gear it right now.
04:43 - Yeah.
04:44 - So, but I think some 40s.
04:47 - I wonder if max speed means it'll do everything
04:50 at that speed, or if that just means going down the highway.
04:53 - I've passed convoys of these on the highway
04:55 and they're barely doing 55.
04:56 - Yeah.
04:57 Well, they were hauling all sorts of important stuff.
04:59 We're not hauling anything but a good time.
05:01 - Oh, look.
05:05 - You flip it over and it's your seat.
05:10 - Mine's full of rat poop.
05:12 Not a single commando knife or nothing.
05:16 - Oh yeah, there's a whole rat's nest on this side.
05:18 These things are already,
05:24 they've got like this beefy aluminum roll bar
05:26 from the factory.
05:27 It's got a pretty heavy duty one
05:29 for the windshield and the B pillar.
05:31 We're going to be kind of bombing this thing
05:33 pretty hard in the desert.
05:34 And to be a little safer, we're going to do a roll cage.
05:37 We'll do a basic, kind of like a Jeep style roll cage,
05:40 but I'm going to shoot the tube
05:41 through the existing bar here.
05:43 So it'll go through and then it'll come down
05:45 and tie into the wheel well opening.
05:47 We're going to keep it looking original,
05:49 but then add to it and make it look awesome.
05:51 We picked up some inch and three quarter 120 DOM
05:59 at the metal yard,
06:00 bending it up on the JD squared bender.
06:03 You use a angle finder like this
06:05 to figure out the degree you want it.
06:08 You bend your tubing and you try and match it
06:10 as close as possible.
06:11 Where the roll cage comes down into the floor,
06:19 this is aluminum floor and there's a seam
06:20 in the aluminum right here.
06:22 So what we're going to do is we're going to make
06:23 a sandwich plate.
06:24 We get these two, these are about three 16ths plates
06:28 and we'll put one on top of the floor like this.
06:32 And then we'll run some grade eight bolts
06:35 down through there.
06:37 And then below the tub,
06:40 we'll put another plate and another washer and lock nut.
06:44 Then when Dave has this tube set exactly where he wants it,
06:47 he can weld the tube right to this plate.
06:50 And in the worst case scenario that we go upside down,
06:53 the tube won't punch right through and then crush us.
06:57 So day one of our Humvee build went pretty well.
06:59 I think we're almost out of tubing.
07:01 So we may need to get some more tubing,
07:02 but we did get some better safety seat belts.
07:05 So we're going to put some new seat belts in tonight.
07:07 Dave's going to work on the cage some more,
07:08 but that's pretty much it for the day.
07:10 Tomorrow, I think our big tires and wheels show up
07:12 and we should be ready to head to the desert.
07:15 (upbeat music)
07:20 Morning, Dave.
07:27 - Let's get this thing done.
07:29 - I got us a big tire.
07:30 - I got camouflage seat covers.
07:32 - This thing's going to be rad.
07:33 - Let's get it done and go to the desert.
07:35 Time to decorate.
07:36 So we got these because the seats were blown out
07:40 and rather than go to the junkyard and buy new seats
07:43 and build a bunch of brackets,
07:45 we went to the hardware store
07:46 and we got these beautiful jungle camo seat cushions.
07:50 - It's going to look good.
07:52 - It's going to look awesome.
07:53 We're going to need our Hawaiian shirts for this episode.
07:55 - We forgot to get those.
07:56 - The cage is done.
07:57 We got a tarp because the roof that was on it,
08:00 the soft top ripped to shreds when we towed it home.
08:04 We're going to ratchet strap that on
08:06 so that we don't get sunburned
08:07 when we're out rock crawling.
08:09 - We got seat belts.
08:10 - We got some seat belts.
08:10 We got a finish bolt in the seat belt.
08:12 So, and then we're going to trim.
08:14 We got these, we got some 40 inch tires.
08:16 So we're going to trim the fenders so that those fit.
08:19 Perfect.
08:19 (upbeat music)
08:25 (upbeat music)
08:27 Now, underneath this big tire
08:43 is the portal box, the portal gear box.
08:47 And a portal is a system where the axle shaft comes in,
08:51 goes through two sets of gears.
08:54 So as this gear turns this way,
08:56 the bottom gear turns this way
08:57 and the bottom gear is attached to the tire.
09:00 It keeps the axle shaft angle pretty flat
09:04 and you get more ground clearance.
09:05 So if you figure this is probably the center
09:09 of the top gear, you're looking at about four inches a drop.
09:13 And this also reduces the stress on everything upstream
09:16 so you can run smaller components.
09:22 Time to finally put the big 40 inch tires on the Humvee.
09:26 Dave is going to every lug nut
09:28 and putting some anti-seize on it.
09:29 The wheel studs have been kind of rusty.
09:31 These are 40 inch Yokohamas
09:34 and these are 17 inch wheels from KMC.
09:38 These tires are directional.
09:39 There's actually a passenger side tire
09:42 and this would be the driver's side.
09:44 When they came from tire rack,
09:45 they're already mounted, balanced, ready to go.
09:47 And they were marked.
09:49 We are going to bolt these on
09:50 and finally get out of the shop
09:53 and go play in the desert.
09:55 The first thing we'll probably break,
09:58 if we break anything, is going to be the ball joints.
10:02 - It looks good.
10:02 It looks like there's tons of clearance.
10:05 - Or maybe the axle shafts
10:07 or maybe the drive shafts, U-joints.
10:09 But maybe it's not hard to break all three at the same time.
10:12 - Let's pull it off the lift and get it out of here.
10:14 - Dave.
10:15 - Yeah.
10:16 - Have you ever built a Humvee before?
10:17 - Nope, first one.
10:19 - Ladies and gentlemen, here it is.
10:21 The first and greatest Humvee Dave and I have ever built.
10:24 (engine roaring)
10:27 - Where's the trailer?
10:33 - To the trailer.
10:37 - Buckle up for safety, Fred.
10:39 - Buckling up for safety.
10:47 (upbeat music)
10:49 - Welcome to Johnson Valley, Dave.
10:58 - Good job, it's hot.
11:00 - What do you want to do with this thing?
11:02 - I say we see how it does
11:03 compared to the old blue monster Ford.
11:05 - So run it up the sand dunes over there and turkey claw?
11:08 - Yeah, and hit the whoops.
11:09 We never made it to the whoops in that thing.
11:11 - This thing will do awesome in the whoops
11:12 'cause it's basically a race car.
11:13 - Yeah.
11:14 - And if it doesn't get destroyed in those four obstacles?
11:17 - We're gonna run it up back door.
11:19 (laughing)
11:22 - Unload it, I'm gonna grab my boots.
11:23 It's gonna be a long day.
11:25 All right, so there's that sand dune
11:40 we couldn't climb in the big dumb Ford.
11:43 I would like to assume that AM General
11:45 spent millions of dollars engineering the Humvee
11:49 to climb sand dunes 'cause they probably figured
11:51 if there's a war near sand dunes.
11:54 - We need to be the best at it.
11:55 - Right.
11:56 - Are we going big?
11:58 - Go, go!
11:59 Get it!
12:03 Climb, climb Humvee, climb!
12:06 Climb!
12:07 - Oh, come on!
12:08 - Keep climbing!
12:09 Climb!
12:10 Climbing!
12:12 - Let's try that again.
12:13 - I think I meant that one over there.
12:15 - Let's do it again, dude!
12:16 - It seems really stable.
12:18 - All right, go!
12:20 Climb!
12:23 - We'll just work our way over to the bunny slope.
12:29 - Go, go, go!
12:31 - Oh, come on!
12:32 - One more time!
12:37 Hit it harder, dude!
12:40 - That's it, that's all you got!
12:41 - I know we can beat it!
12:42 - Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go!
12:46 We should camp right here.
12:50 - All right, so.
12:54 - That go?
12:55 - It did really good.
12:57 Let's go drive up to the top
13:03 and look at what we didn't get up.
13:05 I give it an A plus for a good time.
13:12 - So basically you just need to lay out
13:13 the perfect course for the Humvee.
13:15 - Yeah, I got a lot of sand in my teeth.
13:18 - So we've determined that the Humvee
13:19 is at the top of its game
13:21 and it works better going downhill.
13:22 - Yes.
13:23 - It's not really a low-lying machine.
13:25 This is like the pinnacle.
13:26 - Well, they typically got dropped out of airplanes.
13:29 So that's what it's used to doing.
13:31 - Oh yeah, drive right over this edge, we'll be fine.
13:34 - You know what race cars are good at?
13:36 - Going fast in the whoops.
13:38 - Yeah, we didn't do so hot in the dunes.
13:40 Going through this kind of rough stuff
13:42 is where the thing's really gonna shine.
13:44 - So that's where you spend your big dollars though.
13:46 Like race cars spend all sorts of money
13:48 going fast in the whoops.
13:49 - Because they have really nice shocks
13:52 and really big engines.
13:53 - That guy said that these shocks
13:55 work good for 20 minutes once.
13:57 And that was probably 20 years ago.
14:00 - So far it's been riding good.
14:01 So I think we'll just see if it rides better going faster.
14:03 - All right, jump in.
14:05 - All right.
14:06 (rock music)
14:07 - Here we go.
14:07 (rock music)
14:10 - Oh boy.
14:15 - Oh yeah.
14:16 - This is it man.
14:16 - It's soaking it up.
14:17 (rock music)
14:18 - There's a big one.
14:19 - Oh yeah.
14:20 - There's that Hummer hop.
14:21 - Oh yeah, that Hummer hop, good.
14:24 (rock music)
14:26 - Good.
14:30 - I'm gonna go ahead and slow down, now I'm not.
14:34 Woo hoo!
14:36 - And the back end just went off the ground and splashed.
14:41 - It really soaks them up.
14:44 (rock music)
14:46 - Yeah!
14:58 (laughing)
15:00 - I think we're there.
15:02 I think this is the finish line.
15:05 (rock music)
15:07 - I think that was about all I wanted out of this.
15:17 (laughing)
15:20 - Ah, that was terrible.
15:27 - I don't know.
15:28 Like we didn't roll the thing,
15:31 but I also feel like my spine
15:32 kind of punched myself in the brain.
15:34 - I think we might have won the whoop section.
15:36 Out of all the tests, the Hummer shines in the whoops.
15:40 - Okay.
15:41 So we need some sort of obstacle course
15:43 that shows like how tight it turns.
15:46 - I don't like driving over bushes in the desert,
15:49 so let's go and weave through all this stuff
15:51 and see if we can get through it quick
15:52 without killing anything.
15:54 - All right, so a bush is a landmine.
15:56 - Bushes are landmines.
15:57 And there's a bogey on our tail.
16:00 (rock music)
16:03 - Here we go, Dave, there's a bogey on our tail.
16:07 Go straight.
16:10 Turn left.
16:10 Hard right.
16:13 Go straight.
16:17 Turn right.
16:21 You got it.
16:22 Luckily we got a lot of ground clearance.
16:26 Go left.
16:27 - Left?
16:28 Woo!
16:29 - You got it.
16:32 (rock music)
16:34 Go that way.
16:41 Go this way.
16:42 - I'm going to Turkey Club.
16:46 I might have missed a couple of your directions.
16:51 - I'm pretty sure we didn't hit any landmines.
16:54 - That was kind of an easy one, though.
16:56 - Yeah, it was kind of lame.
16:57 But I mean, we didn't die.
17:00 - We didn't kill any critters.
17:01 We didn't blow up any landmines.
17:04 - Let's go rock crawling, it's getting late.
17:05 - I think we need to get on some rocks
17:07 because we might be here all night.
17:10 - It's a lot of work driving this thing.
17:13 - Dave, have you changed your mind about Humvees?
17:17 - I didn't like them when they were
17:18 $70,000 luxury vehicles.
17:20 I liked the military versions,
17:24 but it looked like they were so overweight
17:25 they probably wouldn't work at all.
17:27 - But they're really not that heavy.
17:28 - No, and I found that out.
17:30 - And they're also really not that expensive now.
17:32 In fact, you could buy this one when we're done with it
17:35 and they're gonna auction it back off.
17:37 - No, I think it's doing awesome
17:39 for what looks like a big heavy vehicle.
17:42 It's like kicking butt.
17:43 I think it'd be really fun to do an LS swap in one of these
17:46 and make it have some actual horsepower
17:48 that throws down right when you want it to.
17:50 - Yeah, I'm interested to see how it rock crawls.
17:53 I mean, we have big tires, we have lots of ground clearance.
17:57 It's got like a torsion lockers,
17:59 who knows if it's worn out after all the years of abuse.
18:04 I'd say we have at least three hours on this trail.
18:15 - Let's do it.
18:17 Alright.
18:20 - And then we'll probably be sleeping there until dawn.
18:22 - Less talk, more 4x4.
18:27 - I'm gonna apologize now for my poor driving.
18:30 - You got this, Dave.
18:31 - Can't take the race line everywhere.
18:35 - The only thing we really need to remember
18:38 is like right here is a transmission pan
18:40 with zero body armor.
18:42 Passenger front's gonna climb big.
18:46 I'd say bring it tight on the passenger side.
18:51 There you go.
18:56 You got this, David.
18:58 - I'm more of a jumping car kind of guy.
19:01 - Bring it down to Hummer Town.
19:04 - Come on, big tires, do your thing.
19:07 I'm driving it.
19:12 Come on, little buddy.
19:14 - Let me look underneath and see what we got.
19:16 - Okay.
19:24 Climb, little tumby.
19:26 Climb.
19:29 Climb.
19:29 I can't believe how well this is rock crawling.
19:35 - It's doing way better than I expected.
19:38 - Dude, this is cool.
19:39 So if you're rock crawling, you'd be amazed
19:51 even as slow as you're going how hot an engine
19:53 and transmission can get to.
19:55 - It's at 220, I think we're good.
19:57 - All right, so just keep an eye on your gauges,
19:59 but also keep an eye on your spotter
20:01 and keep an eye on your cooler.
20:03 Make sure it's full of really icy cold water.
20:06 - And try to figure out the braking point
20:07 on some of these parts.
20:09 - Oh yeah, well this thing's, it's amazing,
20:11 but we're not really sure how much tire spin
20:14 it'll take before it blows apart a half shaft.
20:17 One of the boots is already leaking grease everywhere.
20:20 - All right, let's roll out.
20:21 - We got almost halfway there.
20:25 Over halfway there.
20:25 - We'll get to the trail here any second now.
20:28 - That gatekeeper was tough.
20:30 - So we're coming up to a spot here.
20:34 You see this giant boulder here?
20:36 There's these big two.
20:37 There's actually two options.
20:38 There's the right line and the left line,
20:40 but with a truck this wide,
20:42 neither line is looking really good.
20:45 So we're gonna try the right line
20:48 and see if we can keep the tires on the rocks
20:52 and the transmission pan off the rocks,
20:54 'cause there's almost no skid plate under there.
20:58 - Come on.
20:59 - There you go.
21:03 There you go.
21:04 Keep it coming.
21:06 We're perfect.
21:07 Perfect.
21:09 Run it right over here
21:12 and see if you can climb up this pinnacle.
21:16 (engine revving)
21:18 Come on, little buddy.
21:19 - Uh-oh.
21:20 - I'm going this way, I guess.
21:22 - Uh-oh.
21:23 Uh-oh.
21:25 Try to go back.
21:28 - Oh.
21:32 - Come on, you big, heavy truck.
21:38 Let me get a rock behind this tire.
21:43 - Get in there, rock.
21:45 - What happens if you turn passenger and back?
21:50 - I'm just worried I'm gonna break a shaft if I do that.
21:53 The whole thing was going really good
21:55 and then it was like one or two of the rocks shifted
21:58 and the thing just kinda pivoted on this boulder
22:01 and now I'm wedged in from all four corners.
22:05 (engine revving)
22:07 - There she goes.
22:16 Nice and easy.
22:19 Be a ballerina.
22:21 - Feels much better.
22:31 - Dial, dog, you're dialed.
22:34 (engine revving)
22:36 Yeah.
22:42 Yeah.
22:43 You got it.
22:44 Keep it this way.
22:45 Come on, big tire.
22:48 Get up on top of all that junk.
22:51 Nothing should hold you up if you keep moving.
22:55 - This is easy. - Keep going, keep going.
22:58 - Part of the trail, I better not screw it up.
23:02 (engine revving)
23:05 - Is that aggressive enough?
23:09 - That's gotta be it.
23:10 Come a little further.
23:12 Get it.
23:25 You're good.
23:26 It's wide open.
23:32 - Let's go, Allen.
23:33 - Like that? - Yeah.
23:38 Go, Dave, go.
23:39 Go, go, go, go.
23:45 - You're good.
23:47 - This thing just soaks it up.
23:49 Go, Dave, go.
23:52 - That was a good one.
23:57 - This thing doesn't suck.
24:00 - This is awesome.
24:02 - I mean, it's like, I was really expecting it
24:05 to be the biggest turd we've ever had.
24:07 - Me too.
24:07 - It could use more horsepower.
24:09 - Yeah, but we didn't break it
24:10 because of lack of horsepower.
24:12 - The 40s fit no problem.
24:14 - Yeah.
24:15 - I was fully expecting axle shafts to blow apart
24:17 and they didn't.
24:18 - Nope.
24:19 - It rides through the whoops like a wild Bronco.
24:22 - Yeah, but it didn't break.
24:24 You tried doing that in anything else
24:25 and the rear housing is gonna be bent and broken.
24:28 - I'm really impressed.
24:29 - And we rock crawled it.
24:30 - Come on.
24:31 - I was wondering how we were gonna tell people
24:33 to buy a Humvee at the start of this episode.
24:34 - Yeah.
24:35 - And now I think they're pretty cool.
24:36 - Yeah, way better than expected.
24:38 - Yeah.
24:39 - Good job.
24:40 - That's it for Dirt Every Day.
24:41 We'll see you next time.
24:42 - You can drive.
24:43 - Oh, finally.
24:44 - Take me to camp.
24:47 - How do you work all these buttons and switches?
24:51 - You'll get the hang of it.
24:57 ♪ Humvees don't work so great in the dunes ♪
25:01 ♪ But I bet they'll work real great going fast ♪
25:05 ♪ In the whoops, the whoop-de-doos ♪