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The Gremlin

HUMMER INVESTMENTS

[o O IIIIIIII O o]
Messages
3,518
Location
Black Hawk, SD
I figured, so long as I'm getting back into the swing of things I would try to create a build thread. Some will remember the '99 Wagon my dad and I wheeled in 2012 during the Black Sheep Hummer Run. Well we ended up selling it and 2 years later this Electrical Gremlin showed up at a dealership near us. Almost seemed like a too good to be true deal:

2003 HMCO
Duramax Swapped
Alpha Interior Swapped with all working components.

Those two essentially had me sold right upon inspection back in late 2013. We took it home and the problems just unfolded before we got it back from the 25 mile drive home. Initially, the half-shaft broke on the interstate back. The dealership took care of it and ordered new parts to get installed by a locally trusted shop. After that I had noticed there was a leak in the soft top but couldn't tell where. It sat for a couple months, and upon start-up i noticed that the rpm gauge had stopped working and the electrical gremlins continued by eventually having half of the electrical switches and gauges not working. Big Dog Offroad answered the call and they drove up here to pick it up (1 of the 3 total times) to take a stab at fixing its issues. I'm sad to say that i dont think anything was ever truly fixed. I think that everything was kind of just bandaged enough to make it work. After the third time it was returned, and not properly working it was shipped off to Predator to sit from 2015-2016. Their only resolution was to upcharge me $5k on my credit card for work they never completed and to "push" me to completely redo the whole conversion with their "Predator" workmanship and parts. I had told them from the beginning the only thing that needed to be done was to rewire the whole conversion. I didn't want their Predator Duramax motor and trans swapped for my perfectly running drive-train.

After its almost 2 years of sitting at Predator Hummercore ended up getting a hold of me saying they would take a crack at it. They had it for about a year and a half before they flat out told me they didn't know what to do minus fix the small mechanical issues that the last two shops had already charged for at one point or another, so we proceeded with those small mechanical issues and they ended up giving it up to Tustin Hummer. Tustin had the truck close to 8 months before it was finally finished and ready to pickup. I was so ecstatic about finally being able to bring it home that some minor issues on pickup didn't show until 1 hour into our drive to Anzo Boreggo. At this point my only complaint was that cruise control didnt work and that i had a 2000 mile drive back to learn how to drive without it:giggle:

We ended up wheeling some of the flats at Anza Boreggo but still being timid enough to not break anything.


We also made a stop in some of the Arizona Mountain ranges to do some mild wheeling:


Finally at the end of that long day we made it to Moab. We were able to fit in a couple light trails of wheeling before heading home through the Rockies that evening.

Currently i have been able to put on 4000 miles since the trek home mostly putsing around town with a couple wheeling trips out. Still need to work out the cruise control issue, as well as start planning out mods. My hope is to have everything ready in order to make it to AMG Proving grounds event that is possibly happening in August of 2021. Photos to be imputed once i get them onto my computer.
 

3Hummers

Super Moderator
Staff member
Messages
10,398
Location
Central Texas
Mike has fixed a lot of other shops issues. Apparently Big Dog left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. Eric never did any work for me but he seemed like a personable guy. Some of the stories people told about his work were pretty amazingly bad. Predator has had their share of bad stories also. Some people swear by them, some people swear at the. Hummercore has usually been pretty good but they seem to do lots of cosmetic stuff. Not sure about the mechanical side of their shop.
 

HUMMER INVESTMENTS

[o O IIIIIIII O o]
Messages
3,518
Location
Black Hawk, SD
Here are some various photos from the Pismo trip, to Moab trips, and everything in between to hauling it to Big Dog Offroad. Im not savvy enough at the moment to insert the photos into my text. 20915070_1468811149832693_1197105351124062200_n.jpg11895960_927380017309145_370121812888119297_n.jpg20770052_1464824066898068_1709815861585474032_n.jpg13516247_1096093427104469_8564920058718657853_n.jpg20882132_1468811176499357_7499239707782870293_n.jpg11204431_860912337289247_1520459041017972589_n.jpg20727969_1464822213564920_6275383983158820678_n.jpg20799846_1464821746898300_4677401841005401955_n.jpg
 

HUMMER INVESTMENTS

[o O IIIIIIII O o]
Messages
3,518
Location
Black Hawk, SD
I hate to talk bad about another business, i think it just started snow-balling from so many shops having their hands on it that eventually Mike was the only one that could've fixed it. But out of all fo them, the only one worth the money at the end was Mike.
 
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