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Broken Bike
Between the Hummer Parts, adding features to the two current themes, and staying active in like sports I like, I haven’t had much time to myself. The other day I decided that I would finally get around to fixing my Kawasaki 2006 636 Ninja. After having some weird brake issue, and now the shifting has become difficult I thought I would take it upon myself to fix it. After series of bad events that was no one’s fault, I decided that I would do the work on my bike from now on. After some research I thought that the shifter drum and shifter forks had been worn because of my driving style. It made sense, that if the up-shifting was difficult on my Ninja, that the mechanism responsible for shifting would be worn or shaved in spots. At first I was just going to get the bike ready for doing the work by removing the fair and some other things, but I just couldn’t stop once I started. The bad news came when I finally got the bike completely apart. The shifter drum, shifter forks, and the gears all looked brand new when I finally got a look at the parts. Not a single scratch on anything, no marring, just shiny brand new looking metal. The oil was perfect, couldn’t have had more than 1000 miles on it and was very clean. I was disappointed that the parts I looked up and order had turned out to be just be [...]
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Off-Road Fun
On last Friday, I drove down after work to Badlands Off-Road Park in Attica, Indiana and camped right outside the entrance in there campground. Cooked some food over a campfire while having a great time with some of my best off-road friends. The time change from Illinois to Indiana meant that we show up very late, but it wasn’t a problem because my buddy Mike had fire already going. All in all it was a great way to spend Friday night and Saturday. This time around I aired down the 35 inch tires on my H3 Hummer from 35 to 12 PSI to get better traction and it became night and day the difference from 16 PSI to 12 PSI while off-road. I got a lot of work out of my rock sliders / rocker panel protection and also the skid plates that I have coming out soon. Not only do they provide protection great I also was able to slide right over rocks, mud, and downed trees with ease. If you watch below video closely you’ll notice, if you have factory leaf spring mounts, how my high clearance leaf spring mount save the shock mount on the Hummer at one point in the video.
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Lifting the H3 Hummer
Factory ground clearance on a H3 Hummer is less than ideal at 10 1/2 inches, which is why it constantly gets hung up on the cross-members and looks like a turtle. I was disappointed, to say the least, when I realized just how far I had step backwards with my H3 Hummer compared to my previous vehicle. The feeling is a terrible one, but I know in my heart that not enough work has been done yet to the H3 Hummer before I will throw in the towel. The first step to gaining better ground clearance with the H3 Hummer is bigger tires. Normally this is the second step for most most vehicles. However from the factory, the H3 Hummer can fit massive 315/75r16 tires with out any problems. I personally can’t find a single good reason to go any bigger than 35 inch tires. So I choose to go with General Grabber Red Letter 315/75r16 tires this time around because I wanted a tire that was more road friendly than my past choices. While these tires aren’t the quietest tires at this size, I feel that they a great compromise between on road driving and great off-road performance. Next up is to raise the front-end of the Hummer up by tightening the bolt on the torsion bars underneath. The best part is that this costs nothing to do, however the Hummer will need an alignment to correct the steering geometry. Some companies like to offer “torsion keys” when cranking [...]
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H3 Hummer 35″ Tires
Ever since H3 Hummer obsession took hold of me, I have seen many people visit my site searching what’s the biggest tires a H3 Hummer can fit and whether or not it is possible to put 35 inch tires on a H3 Hummer. The answer is surprisingly, “Yes, thirty five inch tires will fit on a H3 Hummer that is completely factory.” Even the factory tire mount on the tailgate will fit a 35″ tire just fine. There are however few things to know when mounting tires that big on the H3, but over all it is completely worth it. The biggest tire that will fit without any modification to the vehicle is 315/75r16 which is 34.6 inches tall and about 11 inches wide. Even though the tires are only 34.6 inches at the tallest, they are considered 35′s in the off-road world. The tire I decided to go with is the General Grabber 315/75r16 because I wanted a tire that was aggressive, but had relatively no impact on tire noise, gas mileage, and high speed handling when compared to the factory tires. To my surprise, when I finally came face to face with the tires I found them to be more aggressive than I had expected. However, while they are more aggressive than I was expecting, I have had my expectations for the tires exceeded. The road noise isn’t an issue, gas mileage seems to be right on, and while they handle differently it is only because of the [...]
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High Clearance Redesign
The other day I sold out of my High Clearance Leaf Spring Mounts for the H3 Hummer, which makes me proud to say that I’m actually starting to make a business out of building off-road parts. Since I’m completely out of them at this moment I have decided to redesign them a bit so that they can be assembled with more precision when I welding. The main reason for this is to reduce the amount of time it takes for me to assemble them, but also to have a finished product that is esthetically more pleaseing to the eye. The redesign should also have the add benefit of making the leaf spring mounts even stronger than before. Of course there is no need for them to be any stronger, but why not I figure. Getting a bit off topic, but if you happen to purchase a set of High Clearance Leaf Spring Mounts from me I recommend that you also purchase 2″ Extended Shackles too. The extended shackles bring the shock back to nearly factory specifications, giving the full range of articulation that GM intend for it and reducing the chance of bottoming out the shock which can cause damage. Enjoy some teaser photos of the new design coming.
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Beef Jerky 001
Couple times every week, I like to browse on over to the website Art of Manliness, and read about the things they talk about and discuss on their website. Recently I came cross “How to Make the Best Beef Jerky in the World,” which I found interesting. For the longest time I thought you needed some specialized dehydrator to make beef jerky or dehydrate some food right. I was surprised when I read that the instructions say to just use an oven to dehydrate the beef Jerky, and that is why I found it interesting and had to make the best beef jerky in the world myself. However don’t get the wrong impression, I don’t think knowing how to dehydrating meat into beef jerky is some critical life skill. I not a fan of saying anything is the best, because you assume you know what perfection is. The thing about perfection is that it’s unknowable. It’s impossible, but it’s also right in front of us all the time. It’s something so delicate or precise that it becomes difficult to analyze or describe what just makes something, or someone, truly great. I hope we can slow down with our exaggerations, reserve tall-tales for only the people that were unanimously great, and build a understanding between all of us so that we can create truly wonderful things together. Despite what it may seem, I do think that the recipe makes some good beef jerky, and it is definitely something to talk about [...]
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69 Boss Mustang
I’m just about to start writing some code for the WordPress Theme Adventure. But before I do, I have to finally get around to sharing this awesome video of a Boss 1969 Mustang. In the video hot rod builder Bodie Stroud brings to life one of the best Mustangs I have ever seen that it is all for go, and not for show. This Mustang is hands down to me the best looking, performance driven, know exactly what your talking about, mustang I have ever seen. Even the famous Elonore from the movie of “Gone in 60 Seconds” that came out in 2000 doesn’t compete. Coupled with the exceedingly rare, 1 of 10, all aluminum, 494 motor, built in 1969 specifically for Mario Andretti‘s Can Am racing days, and dynoed at 777 horsepower, not much can match up with this Stang. With the motor putting out horse power numbers like that, a factory uni-body has no chance of surviving it . So Bodie Stroud cut out the factory uni-body and custom built a full-frame chassis for the Mustang to give the Mustang the strength it needs, and the handling you want. Anyway, before I give the entirety of the video away. Enjoy.
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Currently Working
Hey the website might look a little odd here or their, but that is just some construction going on. I have been rewriting all my code because of this crazy idea where I re-size the content based on “em” instead of pixels and so far it seems to work really well. Everything on the website and the shopping cart should still work completely fine even with the construction going on right now.
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Romney Rally
I happened to attend the Mitt Romney Victory Rally in Cedar Rapids on October 24th, 2012 at the Landmark Aviation Airport. When I arrived at the airport I was immediately greeted by police that told me to turn around and drive to the “Post Mills” building down the road 3 miles so I could ride bus all the way back. I was quite disappointed by this, but I had driven entirely to far to simply turn around. When I got to the “Post Mills” building I was surprised by all the vehicles and this extremely large bulldozer that was completely painted in the typical patriotic colors, red and blue, with the two names “Romney” and “Ryan” on the blade. In hindsight, I wish I would have taken a photo of the massive bulldozer because it was quite impressive to see the paint job on it but also that someone is just hauling it around on the bed of semi to promote a political view. But anyway, I got on a completely full bus with quite the mix of a crowd that was seemingly the stereotypical conservative voters, and there is nothing wrong with that, and drove back on over to the airport. We arrived at the airport for the second time and drove on up to this airplane hanger that was covered in not only political campaign signs on this inside but also security on the outside. I suppose I should have expected as much since Mitt Romney is someone [...]
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Team Fortress 2
I’m a big fan of the game Team Fortress 2 (TF2) ever since the first version of Team Fortress Classic came out back in 1999. It was possible to get a head-shots using a 56k modem connected to the internet back then, but sadly those days are long gone. Seeing as I’m currently using only 0.3% of my monthly bandwidth on my server, I will hopefully make better use of the massive bandwidth that I’m allocated. With over 12 years passing since playing Team Fortress for my first time, I’m proud to say that I now have my own TF2 server today. If you don’t know what TF2 is, watch these teaser trailers that I conveniently posted below for you. But before you watch the video’s below, let me tell you the best part about the game… It’s completely free for anyone to play. I’m serious, that wasn’t a joke. All you have to do is go to Steam’s Website, download the software and install, after which you need to create an account that is completely free and finish by clicking install TF2 in the tab labeled “Games” and after few hours of downloading your set. If those videos didn’t get you pumped to play Team Fortress 2 then this post is lost on you, because I re-watch those video for fun from time to time. But anyway, to get back to reason for this post I have my own server now and you can connect to it by going [...]
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Badlands Appreciation
I met up with some fellow Hummer owners to do some driving off-road for the first time since I first got ownership of this H3 on October 6th. We happened to all meet up in Attica, Indiana at Badlands Off-Road Park which is for the most part the mid-west’s one and only off-road park. Badlands used to be a quarry but has since been converted into place for having fun with your dirt bikes, four-wheelers (or should I say quad?), and of course full size vehicles. The park has a little bit of everything from rocks, mud, deep water, and huge hill climbs with in 800 acres. It happened to be customer appreciation at Badlands that day, and it is a great event to go because of free food, drinks, night races, fireworks, and all such things going on at night. However I was just there to get my name out about the H3 Hummer parts I make and to test out my H3. Hopefully by spreading word about my parts that one day I can bring H3 Hummers up to the point where they can easily compete with a mildly modified JK Wranglers. I define “mildly modified,” as some where in the range of $5,000 dollars invest into making it drive better off-road. Basically if you can buy it and for the most part are able to bolt it on over the weekend, it is in this category. For the most part, no one will be messing with the [...]
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Burning Man 2012
I was at Burning Man 2012 with my Brother and Sister this year camped at 2:39 and H. Even with all the rumors floating around Burning Man this year, it went off with out a hitch, well “Wall Street” did burn a day late. So typical of them to be late, HA! Even with everything working out great I wish I took more photo’s, but I find it so hard for me. I just keep living in the moment not thinking about anything else. The image I’m in above is right before we got into Gerlach, NV on the roads Jungo and state route 48 and in the dust behind me is Black Rock City, NV. I should mention that those roads are really just graded dirt and gravel, but I averaged just under 50 mph in my Hummer. If you have 4-wheel drive and don’t mind some bumps and the possibility of a flat tire, but that risk always exists even on pavement, this road can save some serious time and has some very beautiful country side to look at. When I drove the route coming from Salt Lake City, I turned off into this little town called Winnemucca where I gassed up and hit those dirt roads. Not to fret though, even though it is extremely remote there seems to be a mine of some sort and plenty of railroad tracks which means you should see some cars sooner or later if you happen to have car trouble. [...]
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