Hate You Hummer H2

       

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Original Kit:
Hummer H2 SUT
Made By:
Maisto
Scale:
1/27
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Without doing a ton of scratch building, Maisto's diecast is pretty much the only option for the pickup version of the H2 in 1/24(ish). Fortunately, it's a well-done replica with a nice parts breakdown and good detailing.

I started by completely disassembling the truck and stripping off the factory paint. My usual Aircraft Stripper wasn't quite getting the job done - not sure if this was due to the age of the chemical or Maisto just used a particularly hardy paint here - so I supplemented with media blasting and wire brushing to get it totally stripped. I finished the cleaning with a wash using Dawn dish soap and a wipe down with Eastwood's pre-paint prep. Once it was clean, I ground off the hood details and laminated a sheet of 0.030" styrene to the hood to give me a smooth surface. The edges were blended using Tamiya putty for the larger areas and superglue for the smaller cracks. The modified body was then painted using Tamiya's pink primer. Inside, I masked off the seats and painted them using Rustoleum's Satin Magenta.

Figuring out a new set of wheels and tires was trickier than I anticipated. The truck in the video had large off-road wheels with six-spoke wheels, but nothing in my parts box had the right combination. I had plenty of large street tires and several tractor/monster truck tires, but the only real off-road tires were off of Monogram's Jeep kit and they were no bigger than the wheels already on the H2. Plus, nearly all the six-spoke wheels I had were 17" - 20" performance wheels, a bit light for the rigors of off-roading. I finally found a set that looked just about perfect on Jada's 2021 Ford Bronco: large, heavy cleats, and six-spoke wheels. It even had a spare on the tailgate that I could use! The only problem now was getting them to fit. I raised the front suspension by eliminating the shoulders at the bottoms of the kingpins, so the steering mechanism could sit lower, then sliding spacers on over the linkage to keep it from drooping. The rear suspension was raised by drilling a new hole through the differential and using a shortened metal axle from the Bronco. The rear tires still hit the tailpipe and side bars, so I trimmed those back and drilled out the exhaust tip.

Once I finally had clearance enough to put everything together to do a test fit, I found that the rear needed quite a bit more lift to get the job done. I briefly considered further modifications to the front axle to level the truck, but liked the aggressive rake too much to change it further.

The only other change I made was drilling out the driving lights, which were cast as part of the front bumper originally. I replaced these with a pair of parts box lenses over scratch built buckets. The rest of the body details were picked out in paint, and the hood deco is a custom-made decal I drew up.

 

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