You're going to hate me, but it must be done . . .

if I have any hope of winning "enabler of the year".  DOD dumping LOW MILE Humvees for about $5K.  

https://www.govplanet.com/jsp/s/search.ips?sm=0&c=3468

Example:

Less than 7,000 miles, starting bid $5K.  

Edd and Mike did one of those on WD- was a pretty neat project.  Huge though.

Are these the ones that some states (inc my home one of Michigan) are not letting you register for the street as they are ex-MOD?

Dirt ever day also did one. It was a pretty capable machine.

Id turbo lq swap that E36 M3. 

these don't actually sell for those prices do they?  is this just like an early auction price that's bound to rise?  

Carbon said:

Id turbo lq swap that E36 M3. 

I did LQ swap one.  (No, really, I did shove an LQ9 into an H1) There is not room for a turbo unless you got very inventive.  There was barely enough room for a shorty header on the right side, and it kinda required more heat shielding than there was adequate space for.  (The engine sits REALLY far over to the right in this chassis, and the framerails are very close together - the driver and passenger seats are outside them!)

With a centrifugal supercharger, you will be able to accelerate harder than you can brake...

Honestly these things are E36 M3ty. I wouldn't want one or to see one on the road. Def don't want to be near one with too much power.

A cousin picked up one of these as a toy/farm truck/hunting vehicle a few years ago at the 10-15k range. It's been a beast to ride around in when I've stopped by. He was fortunate to have been in charge of servicing them in the national guard as it has required a little work.

Is this really what the $50 JEEP has become?

Indy-Guy said:

Dirt ever day also did one. It was a pretty capable machine.

Found a pic for inspiration:

dirt every day episode link

Would be fun for cruising our property.  I used to use a Cherokee until we hydrolocked  it when the pond was a little too deep,  then a m1009 Blazer,  and now  a Suburban, but a hummer would be more fun.  I need to sign up so I can see the actual selling prices.

In reply to yupididit :

We had a customer that bought one of the first civvy ones. Even dressed up it was a rough place to spend time. He loaned it to me a couple times and as a dumb kid I was still able to appreciate that it was useless. It was really fun on dates where three feet of center console and all the noise in the world separate the two of you. It was like driving an 8000 pound chastity belt.

My friend,the Funeral Home owner has one.  He uses it as a hearse occasionally.  Look at 3rd pic on home page of Joyners.net

I think the only thing these are good for is doing some fairly major crawling-type off-roading without actually heavily modifying the vehicle. 

Vigo said:

I think the only thing these are good for is doing some fairly major crawling-type off-roading without actually heavily modifying the vehicle. 

One of my friends who had to suffer with an HMMWV told me that its main skill was getting stuck until you could get someone with a 5-ton to winch you out.

It certainly doesn't seem like a very crawlable chassis.  Independent suspension all around, helical (open) diffs all around, tons of weight, wheelbase, and width, so it seems like a perfect storm of fail if you want to go crawling. 

I got stuck in one because the rear doors froze shut. That was fun

yupididit said:

Honestly these things are E36 M3ty. I wouldn't want one or to see one on the road. Def don't want to be near one with too much power.

Then I would recommend not clicking on this link, nor watching the video clip within: https://www.autoblog.com/2018/09/24/mil-spec-hummer-h1-track-ready/

My sister was in the Army and talked about driving them. She said they were pretty terrible rigs. The 6.5L turbo diesel was underpowered, they didn't turn or stop or ride well. Now the MRAPs that replaced them, she said those were impressive rigs.

My cousin was involved with different parts of the life of these. He always says that he has to remind people that they started producing these in the late 80s. He realized at some point the officers he was telling this to were born after the vehicle was produced. 

So are you in the market for 1980s off road vehicle?

I am not into anything suv or truck but if you love the look and have a few 20 thousand dollars to throw at it. Then maybe it is worth it as the project dream machine. I would try to just keep the body though. Swap every thing else. 

$5K starting bids usually. They normally sell around 10. Last time I looked, although it has been several years, “federalizing” them to DOT standards runs another $5-10k if you want it road legal. I still want one, although my wife is very much opposed to a surplus HMMWV, with her brother passing when his was hit with an IED in Iraq.

On a lighter note, another BIL, sister’s husband, served in the mid 90s. He was told that it was impossible to flip. Challenge accepted. He accomplished that by driving across a hill as it transitioned to a small cliff. He managed to roll it over but it fought the entire way. 

The good points of these are mostly the ground clearance due to the IFS combined with portal hubs, and their resistance to rollovers. 

Not so much with the rockcrawling or on most any trail that isn't out west due to their size, weight, and lack of articulation.  The do look awesome three wheeling on the red rock of Moab, however. 

I recently was talking with one of my customers(smaller town, fire dept had some as brush trucks) about their H1’s. Liked em but was sending them to auction. Said they leaked a lot and to fix the leaks was some horribly silly expensive cost. They were being replaced with surplus super-duty ford based brush trucks. 

Mainly the parts it needed he said were hard to find of prohibitively expensive. 

the civilian ones i saw at car shows seemed extremely cheap on the interiors. And yeah HUGE console. 

That said i did see these years ago being sold CHEAP as rolling chassis’s. 1 guy i saw put a chevy 350 in one if i remember right. All in it was still cheap and had fun with it. 

I'm no expert on such things, but it seems to me they ever auction any ambulance versions, one of those might make a decent/interesting starting point for an overlanding rig.

Knurled. said:

One of my friends who had to suffer with an HMMWV told me that its main skill was getting stuck until you could get someone with a 5-ton to winch you out.

 

I think careful consideration of the operators is in order. Most of these are being driven by late teen - early 20-somethings with zero mechanical sympathy and little in the way of common sense. If you're making a habit of getting one of these stuck, I don't imagine a Jeep would be doing any better.