After cleaning a little, and “mounting” the windshield, I got to work.

It took most of the day just to clean, but finally I got to welding. First, I cut all the pieces for the fenders and rear rail for the bed and found myself lacking one rail for an inner fender. I took that from my first welding project ever… my old welding table that was too wobbly to hold anything. Freed up some room in my shop too. That table was becoming a “catch-all” or “junk pile” and wasn’t much use anyway. It’s that mess next to the welder in the above photo.

Next, I made the rear bed rail. That was too easy. So I started on the passenger rear fender.

Just because my kids like to build with me, and my wife wanted to see, but didn’t want to come out into the single digit temps, I brought it in to show her “her fender”.

With the Passenger fender and rear bed rail done, I placed them on the frame rails for temporary placement. I placed a piece of flat stock on top and was tempted to stand on it to test out the strength, but decided it wasn’t stable enough yet. I’ll make sure to do that later. And yes, it does look like it isn’t welded to the truck bed rail…because it isn’t yet. I want to get more pieces together and make sure they’re all square before tacking together.

I like the look, but I think I need bigger tires.

Then, after dinner, I started on the driver’s side rear fender. It was slick and quick because I figured out all the issues with keeping the other square already, but then I ran out of wire for my little Lincoln welder, and it was too late to get more.

Duh! You might say. I’m building a Hummer replica. Well, yes, but for the longest time I hadn’t figured out if I was going to go it alone with no plans to speak of. That’s the part I’ve figured out! i’ve decided to use a tried-and-trusted planset from folks who have paved the way rather nicely.

I’ve received the TremorMUV planset. It’s a set I picked up secondhand—not something I’d recommend anyone else doing, right now I’m missing some of the important parts of the set…the build manuals. I was trying to save a few bucks, but in hindsight I should have saved up for the full planset.

Link and advertisement here:

The folks at Rocky Mountain Coachworks have a nice set put together from a nice working prototype they build a few years back. They’ve got on their website, www.tremormuv.com, everything you need to build a Hummer H1 or HMMWV replica, an extensive build forum with some current builds going on, and, most importantly, the most accurate plan set around that is correct to dimensions of the Hummer H1. The best part is, it’s not a kit. You don’t buy and ship parts from someone else, you put it together yourself, according to your needs. If you want to build it in aluminum, go ahead. If you want bulletproof doors and windows, your choice! If you want a soft-top, hard-top, wagon, slant-back, two-door truck, or to put an ambulance body on the back…go for it!

Now the details: If you’ve been reading along with my replica build, you’ll notice that I’ve been leaning in the direction of an open top like the 2004 Hummer H1 Alpha. It will save on some construction time and materials, not to mention weight. Since I live in Idaho, I’ll be considering a wagon hard-top for the winter. One that I’ve looked at and think will work is the wagon top from CalGoldProducts.com.

An alternative would be fabricating my own similar design out of aluminum. I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

Finally, I like the pseudo-camouflage that Shawn Smith used in his AngryIron.com Special Operator build…

Here’s a photoshopped look for what I’m going for, open top:

soft top:

hard top with a possible logo configuration, so I can write it off for advertising :

Help me save up enough to keep the project moving along…