My M998 build log

[JanR]

Hello Jan,
welcome to the madness, from me too ! Good to hear that you bought from Thijs; you´re in pretty good hands then. He knows what he´s doing.

Despite that, I´d check the wheel spindle nuts before driving any more. There have been cases of spindle nuts not being secured, and the whole wheel rolling away during driving. Not as funny as it sounds. Yes, checking the nuts is a day of work (including all the resealing, etc.), but you´ll sleep better afterwards.

I also recommend to check the bolts connecting the halfshafts to the diffs. Those bolts have a tendency to work themselves out, and then damage the brake calipers.

Interesting to hear about required changes in Finland. Down here, we also need to change a few things (mostly lights), but the mad thing is that it all depends on the mood of the check engineer. So we have Humvees with legal red rear flashers, but most converted to yellow. Some have legal red rear side markers, but most converted to yellow. And the holy grail is the brushguard, which was completely verboten by some EU law in the 2000s, yet some check engineers regard this as an important historical part, so on some Humvees here brushguards are legalized. It´s completely confusing, especially for law enforcement.

Thanks! I'm aware of this, so I have only driven it 2km so far and very slowly. I will check the spindle nuts, half shaft bolts and change the oils before driving it again. The humvee is now in my garage, so I'm able to work on it.

We have the same requirement for lights here as in Germany. Everything is inspected annually and the inspectors are quite strict. Red flashers are allowed, but I had to remove the red side markers. Brushguards are legal on terrain vehicles and my humvee will be in class N1G.

 

[JanR]

Time for an update! I don't have much time to work on the humvee at the moment, but I have made some progress. I have installed some nice looking reversing lights and a switch in the gear lever. While having the gear lever removed, I gave it some new paint and lubricants. The top plate had some strange purple coloring. I also made a new seal from an old bicycle tube.



I've also installed the H1 steering column and made the necessary wiring for the switches. I couldn't decide if I wanted to turn on the high beams on the foot switch or the indicator lever, so I wired it so I can use either or. Unfortunately I had to cut out a piece of the dashboard to fit the connector for the steering column lock, but I think it still looks okay. I will later 3D print a steering column shroud that will partly hide the cut.

 

[JanR]

It's been a while! I'm building a house in the weekends, so I don't have as much time for the humvee as I'd like. Anyway, here's what I have been doing during the past months.

I have changed the lights. The headlamps are too close together for use in Europe, so I only use those as high beams. I've replaced the composite lights with LED low beam lights (SW Speaker Model 93). I then added new LED turn signal / parking lights below.



I have changed the front seats to get head rests, which are mandatory. These are the Dodge Grand Caravan or Chrysler Pacifica seats, that some use in their trucks. The driver side seat was easy to install, I just had to weld up some angle iron brackets. On the passenger side I had to cut off a piece of the seat frame to get a good fit.



I have installed the PlanB Gen 2 doors (I think they call them B-spec now). I sanded the parts, riveted the X in place and painted them with an aluminium primer and truck paint. The plan is to later paint the whole truck this color. I'm quite happy with the door kit. The instructions were good and it came with lots of spare screws. There were however some adjustments needed. I had to add 5mm shims between the rear door hinges and truck body, and the lock mechanisms needed some fine tuning. Because of the wider B-pillar of the helmet top, the doors are also a bit too wide, so at some point I will grind off the edges a bit for a better fit.



I have also changed the tires. At least one of the Wrangler MT tires were badly out of balance. They were also really slippery on ice. I'm now running GT/Cepek 17" wheels and Radar Renegade RT+ (37x12.5) tires. After changing the tires, the truck became almost uncontrollable on the road. I checked the toe angles and they were way off! In the rear it was 40mm toe out, while the TM specifies 1.5mm at normal operating weight. I wonder why I didn't notice this with the old tires.

There were no major issues found at the registration inspection, just a sloppy ball joint. So after fixing that I finally got my license plates in January. The humvee is now ready for some winter fun!

 

[Ajax MD]

It's been a while! I'm building a house in the weekends, so I don't have as much time for the humvee as I'd like. Anyway, here's what I have been doing during the past months.

I have changed the lights. The headlamps are too close together for use in Europe, so I only use those as high beams. I've replaced the composite lights with LED low beam lights (SW Speaker Model 93). I then added new LED turn signal / parking lights below.

View attachment 891231

I have changed the front seats to get head rests, which are mandatory. These are the Dodge Grand Caravan or Chrysler Pacifica seats, that some use in their trucks. The driver side seat was easy to install, I just had to weld up some angle iron brackets. On the passenger side I had to cut off a piece of the seat frame to get a good fit.

View attachment 891232View attachment 891233View attachment 891235View attachment 891236

I have installed the PlanB Gen 2 doors (I think they call them B-spec now). I sanded the parts, riveted the X in place and painted them with an aluminium primer and truck paint. The plan is to later paint the whole truck this color. I'm quite happy with the door kit. The instructions were good and it came with lots of spare screws. There were however some adjustments needed. I had to add 5mm shims between the rear door hinges and truck body, and the lock mechanisms needed some fine tuning. Because of the wider B-pillar of the helmet top, the doors are also a bit too wide, so at some point I will grind off the edges a bit for a better fit.

View attachment 891242View attachment 891243

I have also changed the tires. At least one of the Wrangler MT tires were badly out of balance. They were also really slippery on ice. I'm now running GT/Cepek 17" wheels and Radar Renegade RT+ (37x12.5) tires. After changing the tires, the truck became almost uncontrollable on the road. I checked the toe angles and they were way off! In the rear it was 40mm toe out, while the TM specifies 1.5mm at normal operating weight. I wonder why I didn't notice this with the old tires.

There were no major issues found at the registration inspection, just a sloppy ball joint. So after fixing that I finally got my license plates in January. The humvee is now ready for some winter fun!

Thanks for posting these photos. I needed ideas for driver seat mounts. I'm installing Jeep Wrangler YJ seats.