I’m changing things a bit–the Tremor plans don’t give directions on a wagon build, and I’ve made the floorpans true to the 7-inch tall door-sills as found on the Hummer. I’m also not going through the series as outlined, I’ve started with what I could afford and had steel for and continued on from there. This latest work completed the two floorpan frames that will eventually house the seats for the driver and passengers, along with mounting the rear fenders, finishing the rear wagon door frame, starting the center tunnel frame, and repositioning the rear body in proper position over the wheelbase.

The hardest part so far has been keeping it all level and square. The problem is my front right tire is flat. Because of this, the frame tilts down that direction. I’m not going to weld the assemblies together until I know the chassis is level and true. Actually, I may end up doing it anyway and wheel the chassis outdoors to save space. My shop is kind of small. But that would mean constructing another assembly on which to roll the Tremor frame out in order to combine the two later. It would also mean finding some way to lift the completed frame onto the chassis. Neither of these sounds like much fun or possible without more money. So, I planning to keep as much of the frame level and square as possible before welding these major assemblies together. You may notice this as you see cinder blocks and paving blocks holding things roughly in place.

On to the build diary:
Here’s a wideshot of the rear of the wagon. As you can see, I’ve put a chair in about the placement of the driver’s seat… I know it’s not exactly right, but I had to try it out. Also, you may be able to see the rear driver’s side fender had to be chopped. I mistakenly cut the wrong angle on the two pieces that come down to the floorpans on this side. They were both square to each other, but not to the passenger side. I’ll redo these before fitting to the floorpan.

Another few shots of the mock-up of the assembly.

This is a shot of the passenger’s side floorpan. Also visible is the temporary assembly to keep the tunnel level.

From the front, i began placing the firewall pieces, not welded, or even tacked because the floorpans need to be in place first, but just for a guess as to the finished position. Also clamped the windshield on for looks.

With the progress comes silly photos time. Here’s our three crazy drivers’. The older kids have become less enthused with the length of time this is taking. The younger ones are just happy to be part of it.

All in all, this has been a good year for the build so far.

The first two pieces of the frame header welded together.

Three happy travelers in our pretend Hummer

In the meantime, I made a little stand for the steel I got, to keep it off the floor, because I get a nasty leak in the spring…not a moment too soon, there was a puddle on the floor right next to that wall the next day.

Of course, my helper thought it was fun to just be out in the shop.

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…

As I consider the upcoming work that needs to be done, I have encountered a couple dilemmas.

Here’s dilemma #1:
I have 6 large people in my family… even my youngest are tall for their age. So I am hesitant to put them in a rumble seat between the other two rear seats. For one reason, they might end up kicking the heater/component doghouse that I need to build. The other reason is that even before the older kids move out of the house, the younger ones might be hitting their heads while in the middle rumble seat.

One solution is to do it like Shawn did, six-seater with a soft-top option (which I also don’t think will work in ten of Idaho’s twelve months):

Another option is to lower the floor and go with a look more like Ben’s Badlands here:

But, I’m not a big fan of the Badlands, nor Urban Gorilla. They’re close…but the Tremor is closer.

Dilemma #2:
We’re soon going to have “Hummer-lover #7″ in the family. I first wanted to make a four-door replica like this one by Francois Couture:

or like the Tanto build:

There’s no possible way to have the wife and all five kids in the seats of a four door, so I’m leaning toward the wagon…but I want the soft-top look. I don’t remember seeing a final Tremor in Wagon form, and I’ve never seen a replica or even civilian wagon with a soft-top. Closest I’ve seen in anyis this one:

I would also like to try the removable hard-top for the 10 winter months in Idaho, like this one from Fesler:

But, in wagon form…

So I grabbed a soft-top photo from the net, also from Feslerbuilt.com, and stretched it out for the wagon:

I think I like it.

Here’s a rough framework so I can keep everything straight.

Here’s what’s under the hood.

My working buddy decided to take ten…or twenty.

After getting him back in the house, I was able to get a very, very rough layup together.

I just hope it holds up with all the wind we have today, as my shop is a little drafty.

So I decided to do something else. Something free and fun. I had a large piece of cardboard from our recent bathroom remodel that the bathtub came in. It was just about the perfect size for a HMMWV hood mockup. I took it inside—without too many protests from my wife—and drew out an outline of the hood dimensions. Then returned to the shop this morning with it to test it out.

I had help from my son…

As you can see, it’s a little wide:

But, I found something that runs on renewable energy to put under the hood!

You may be asking if I seriously think I can use a cardboard hood on a truck…No, I don’t. I’m going to be building a fiberglass molding plug/modeling buck/whatever-you-want-to-call-it and molding my own hood. Three reasons I don’t want to buy one. First, I’m trying to save money. Second, I want to be able to make another one if I decide I like the first Hummer. Third, I want to learn how to use fiberglass!

So in the saving money department, let me tell you how I gathered up some styrofoam for the mockup. I piled my two little kids in the car, and rolled around town to Sears, and WalMart, KMart, etc. looking for styrofoam from furniture and electronics packaging. It’s cool because not only is it free, but it helps reuse a little bit that might otherwise go to the landfill. I got the idea from Andrew Junge—check out his recent work for a styrofoam hummer.

Anyway, when the box stores were not very helpful—many thanks to recent trend away from styrofoam packaging to more use of cardboard—we headed around town to some apartment housing. We found just a few pieces we could use. We found some long and flat pieces from furniture boxes like I would have expected, and laying around near a construction site we found some thick pink Owens Corning Foamular250. Realizing the connection, I pulled in and asked if the workers had any more scraps. No luck there, but I remembered that the guy at the landfill let me salvage steel in the past for making knives. Maybe he would let me salvage some construction foam.

After work yesterday, I headed to the landfill. In the 20 minutes I was there before they had to close the gate, I got a nice pile. If it’s not enough for the hood, it will definitely be a good start. Here’s a photo:

I ran into a little snag though, I’m in a tool issue again. I need to clean the frame, but it’s Idaho in February. I can wait until it gets warm enough to wash it proper

Or I can try with a brush on my drill

So I sanded it a little. I think I’ll wait to clean it. But I will go ahead with relocating the body mounts to between the frame rails. This will allow the body to sit on the outsides of the rails without raising it.