5GN-H3T - My '06 SAS

Truck has an e-brake again for the first time in years! Just need to connect the hardlines to the calipers and then the rear brakes will be done. Filled the t-case last night with fresh fluid in the cold, windy rain.

Another romantic candle-lit evening under the H3. I got the brake lines connected and made a snow ball.

Public service announcement: Jegs Baja-8 16x8 4” BS wheels hit the front calipers hard. I ground the hell out of a caliper and it still interferes. I’m going to get some 1/4” wheel spacers and have another go at it.

So I’m getting ready to put some shocks on this pig. I bought a pair of 14” Bilstein 7100 short bodies and I’m really happy I only got 2. I wish I got 12” or even 10” shocks. I can cram the 14”-ers on but they are overkill and make mounting more difficult.

Anywho, I’m attempting to mount the upper eyelet of the rear shocks. My first though was to just stick a 1/2” pin through them with a hole in each end and use the factory mounting hardware. That’s not happening. The reservoir hose gets in the way. So, SAS-ers, how did you mount your rear shocks? Axle end is easy.

Rear shocks are a total pita. You can buy some bar pin eliminators or try to find some shocks with the correct upper mount. The BPE’s shorten the travel and make shock installation harder. Most of the time you’ll have to put them on the shocks first. I used Jeep versions and had to modify them. The easier method is to find the right shocks. Even so, you normally have to get out the die grinder and carve on the holes to get them to fit the H3’s oddball bolt spacing.

14” is huge...(I hope that’s fully extended, and not “travel”). I run 10” travel Fox 2.0s and they work very well...I estimate 3” up and 7” droop. I ordered them with pin type mounts on top. Big Red has BPE’s, with bushing eyes on top.

Regardless of the shocks, make sure the bump stops bottom out before the piston does. Otherwise you’ll destroy your shocks immediately.

14” travel. Seemed reasonable with a tape measure. Pretty ridiculous once I actually had the shocks in my hands.

This thing is finally getting close to being safe to drive again. I got the shocks on, extended my diff vent, welded on the front bump stops, got my brake lines routed out of the way. Figured I was just waiting for my front driveshaft to arrive before I could get it inspected.

I pulled out into my road to test the brakes and see how the shocks feel. Uneventful but put a smile on my face. Pulled back into driveway. Shut it off. Go to start it again, and... Nothing. The damn starter went. No problem. I ordered one and figure it’s lifted enough that I can probably pull it out the side/bottom. What a pain. I had to line the socket up to the starter bolts with a borescope. The rear one is buried. Managed to unbolt it but couldn’t get the wires off or get it back off the trans far enough to pull it out. Off with the intake!

Pulled the intake off and finished removing the starter. Other than going up and down a step ladder every time I dropped a tool or forgot a socket, no problem. I was kneeling on the top of the core support and cam cover. I slid a little. I hear “psshhh” and get shot in the face with fuel. What the fudge? Looked around and realized that I cracked the fuel rail at the check port. Great. Another week waiting for parts and $100 burned. I don’t know what compelled me to do it, but then I reached over and decided to give the alternator a spin. I can’t spin it by hand at all. After applying some force, it feels like a broken ratchet. No clue how it was idling nice and quiet. I’m amazed that the serpentine belt stayed on. Should have the alternator and fuel rail Wednesday.

I finally drove it last night! Feels pretty good. Next step is an alignment. I'll try to get pics soon.

Changed a sticky brake caliper and then put like 20 miles on it today. Drives pretty normal. I'm on 33's right now. Figure I'll work out any bugs on the tiny tires before I throw something bigger on it. 37"+ tires are definitely in the near future. I found these rims/tires on craigslist and couldn't pass them up. My spare is a 37. :giggle:

I spent a good part of yesterday setting the alignment. Can't imagine taking this to the average garage or a dealer. Luckily, I have a friend with an alignment machine. Unfortunately, it was hours of aggravation. His alignment heads won't grip on the lip-less rims on the truck and the "eyes" on the heads can't see around anything bigger than a 32" tire. I had to take all the wheels off and set it on just stock rims (no tires). That involved making 5/8" spacers for the front rims to clear the knuckles. Then we plugged in the alignment machine and the smoke came out. A cap died in one of the heads. Spent a while digging through old electronics parts looking for a 10uF cap and 2.5a glass fuses. We actually found the parts we needed. Fixed the head and dialed everything in. We went with an early 80's Chevy 4x4 for the alignment specs. It called for 8 degrees of caster. At 6 degrees, my front pinion angle was looking like poop, so we left it there. There are some monstrous speed bumps at a local parking lot. I can hit them at about double the speed of my stock H3 with the same amount of comfort. It drives nice and straight but...

Now I'm chasing what I believe are some driveshaft vibes. Working on that today. Not sure if it is front or rear yet. Working on the numbers, again.

To the other SAS'ers out there - How much caster are you running?

On my front driveshaft, the u-joint to pinion angle is about 12 degrees. I know this is about 12 degrees from ideal but what’s a practical limit? Also, I’m 28-1/2” from hub-fender.

I really need to go for a drive without the font shaft but haven’t had time to pull it out.

On caster...I’m running 6 degrees I believe. I gotta go back and double check but I cut and turn my C’s when building the custom axle so I could get get caster and a good pinion angle

I run 6 degrees caster (also on a custom welded high-pin housing). On a stock GM housing I set them up for 3 to 5 degrees, as any more than this starts to effect the pinion angle. I run a cardan joint on the front shaft.

On the rear, I try to match the pinion angle to the transfer case angle. This usually results in a 12 degree difference between the spring perches and the pinion angle. Don’t rotate the rear pinion upward too much...it needs to match the t-case angle if you are running a standard 2-joint shaft. Like most, I run a standard jointed shaft in the rear.

Shaft vibes can be hard to track down. Unlike a Jeep we can’t shut off the front drive. Use a quality Spicer brand cardan (I run a 1310 Ford cardan). There is an import 3R cardan casting that bolts directly up to the H3 front output, but I have had nothing but trouble with them, so I prefer a THORparts adapter and the Spicer 1310 unit. I think the spring inside the 3R unit is way too stiff.

I’m fairly confident that the rear shaft is ok. The pinion is about a half degree lower than the t-case. The only oddball thing is that I used a silverado pinion yoke, so I’m running a different u-joint than the stock H3.

My front driveshaft is a Tatton 1310 CV with an adaptor plate. I have too much angle at the pinion. I’m going to rotate my C’s and hope that solves my issues.

Just some gratuitous pics. I've been lacking in the pic department.

My Tatton developed some vibes so I took it apart to investigate. Turns out it had some mis-matched parts inside the cardan joint, and it appeared that it had been “forced” together during assembly. The small center pin of the cardan was broken. I decided to scrap it and build a new one using all Spicer parts, that are designed to work with each other. It works good now...no vibes.

Thanks to everyone for your help and kind words. I would’ve lit this thing on fire or sold it on Craigslist a long time ago without it.

After purchasing my front driveshaft, I found some posts on other sites about the Tatton shafts using mismatched or damaged CVs. The posts were all pretty old and I had hoped that the issues were resolved. I guess these problems still exist. It seemed like the Tatton shaft was all Spicer parts. I just re-read the ad and it only says “Spicer u-joints”.

Cutting the C's off of the currently installed axle would require hacking off a lot of the 3-link and coil spring brackets. That housing might be ok in a rig with a lower ride height. Also, I am trying to minimize the amount of time that the H3 is torn apart. So I had another Dana 44 housing and figured I would start from scratch. Spun it in the lathe and quickly realized that it was bent. Fudge.

Swapped out the 33's for some 37x13.50's.

Looks good.

Nicely built!

I was super paranoid that my front driveshaft was causing all the vibrations. Turns out that my bad vibration noise was the exhaust! Convertor cracked. The exhaust wasn't loud but the crack made this really odd rattle that followed the drivetrain vibes.

On a sadder note, mother nature is trying to reclaim my SAS H3 (she's rusting) and I'm at a very different point in life right now compared to when I started this project. I've decided that it is time to sell it.

looks real nice Thomas :thumbs: