[Mechanical noise of garage slowly opening]
She's getting super close. You would think that since this is an electric vehicle with
no gas tank or engine, that there wouldn't be any liquids inside. Turns out though there's
actually four different kinds of liquids... and did you know that you can mail tires to
yourself?
[pallet jack rolling]
Let's get started.
[Intro]
Today we're going to be mounting these brand new massive tires onto my electric military
Humvee because the tires on there now are bad. You might be thinking to yourself, 'But
Jerry, they're still round.' After tires have been sitting on a vehicle for a while they
become brittle and crack. And this is a 1995 military Humvee and the tires have been on
there for a very long time. There's a YouTube channel from a guy called Weston Champlin
who tried to take his military Humvee that bought and drive it across the United States
and he blew two tires almost immediately because they were so old, brittle, and cracked. So
new tires are super important. I got these tires from TrailBuiltOffRoad.com. Huge thanks
to them for jumping on board and sponsoring this video. Trail Built Off Road has massive
inventory of wheels and tires. It's nice because the tires come mounted and balanced. So when
I stick them on the Humvee I can just drive out of here ready to go. Of course after we
get the batteries off of my table and into the back seats.
The mounting is free, the balancing is free, and even the shipping is free when the wheels
and tires are bought together as a package. Plus, on TrailBuiltOffRoad.com I can just
input my vehicle and instantly see all of the wheels and tires that will fit. It made
things pretty easy. I'll leave a link down in the description so you can try it out for
yourself. Now, I've heard it's been said, out with the old, in with the new.
[Drilling sounds]
So it might get a little loud in here since we're working on the cooling system at the
same time. But this right here is one of the tie down points. I have seen people stick
a piece of re-bar through it and a rope and kind of use it as a makeshift wench sometimes,
but I don't think that's its initial purpose. Luckily I'll be able to leave these on when
I install the new wheels.
[Drilling sounds]
And all of the tires are off. After looking at this pile, there's not a whole lot left
of the original Humvee. Apparently there's not a whole lot of match up between the old
world and the new. And also, you've probably seen a couple videos on YouTube where vehicles
tips over on lifts when the tires are being removed so I have put down some jack stands
underneath the frame to make sure that doesn't happen. The goal here with this project is
to not end up on a fail video.
We're kind of running out of room in my garage because we have two complete vehicles but
one vehicle body. Like with everything else that I've taken out of the military Humvee,
I've waited so we can see what the weight difference it between the diesel powered vehicle
and the electron powered vehicle. And we're going to do the same thing with the tires.
So this tire right here is hovering off of the ground, and currently we are at 157. Now
I think that the tires between the old ones and the new one which you can see back there,
they're going to be relatively similar, but this does probably have a steel run flat inside.
I made a video about run flats over on the What's Inside YouTube channel where we actually
popped a tire and then saw what was inside a run flat. So if you're curious you can go
watch that. But long story short, the run flat allows the vehicle to move even if the
tire itself is gone. It won't be riding on the rim, it will be riding on the run flat...which
is basically a huge chunk of durable metal. Now let's see what the new tires weigh. The
new tire's hanging suspended off the ground with this very nice tread. We are at 128,
which according to my math is 30 pound difference per tire. And since there are 4 tires, 120
pounds we've saved by just swapping out the tires. It'll be interesting to see where we're
at with the final video which should be coming pretty soon. We're getting way close.
Before I can install the new tires though, I want to upgrade the portal hub covers right
here. The military Humvees and the Hummers all have portal axles which increase the torque
at the tire and give more ground clearance. It's a gearbox, and because it's a gearbox,
it does generate heat. And by adding these cooling fins it can dissipate that heat by
30%. It's not one of those things that's like super important, but since we're adding a
whole lot of power, might as well get rid of heat where we can.
One of the four liquids I talked about earlier was the oil inside of this hub. Since there
are gears rubbing together creating friction, the oil is in here for lubrication. The oil
coming out of my hub looks super clean so it must have been changed recently. One cool
thing about the drain plug is that there's a magnet on the inside which is here to help
catch any super small metal shavings so they don't rattle around inside of the gearbox.
[Ratchet sounds]
And as you can see, now that the plate is gone, there are the gears in all of their
glory. That gear is actually much larger than I thought it would be. So we have the little
gear up there coming in from where the motor used to be. And then the larger gear right
here headed out to the wheels. That's crazy. Unfortunately though, it can't stay transparent
forever. And our new heat sink portal cover can go in place with its new hardware. The
nice part about the new one is that it has a clear window inside so we can see how much
oil is inside and if it's at the correct level which is important when there is moving parts
involved. Now the portal axle covers have been upgraded. Take a look on this side. They
are all ready to go. It is time for the new tires.
When it comes to tires and wheels I'm not super picky. I wanted something pretty close
to stock, meaning 12 ½ inches wide by 37 inches tall, while at the same time being
pretty low key. Not super flashy. So I went with these matte black wheels, and some aggressive
all-terrain tires with a load range of D I'll still be able to tow well over 10,000 pounds
assuming everything goes smoothly of course. And they still have a 50,000 mile warranty.
When upgrading your wheels and tires, you'll hear two different words: offset and backspace.
Offset means how far away from center the spokes are inside of the wheel. And backspace
means how much room you have on the inside of the tire. I used both of these measurements
to make sure that the outside of my tires lined up with the body, but you can use the
same information to stick your tires out farther or even recess them a bit like they were on
the stock Humvee. And of course all of this information is on TrailBuiltOffRoad.com. They
make it easy. Plus they even have a snowflake right here so I'm pretty sure they'll even
work in the snow. Here in Utah all weather tires are pretty important because as it gets
colder the rubber stops being as grippy. I learned that the hard way when a ladder I
was standing on with rubber on the bottom was freezing and it slipped out on the asphalt
and I broke my wrist. Rubber is rubber and tires are made of rubber, so getting rubber
that sticks in the winter is super important. I also wasn't a huge fan of how the old tires
didn't line up with the frame where the new tires line up perfectly and maybe stick out
a little. It's already a wide vehicle and we don't need to make it any wider. It is
extremely nice though that I was able to ship these to myself because right now we only
have a drive-able range of about 3 ½ feet since we are still connected to the batteries
here. But you know, maybe in the next video we'll toss those in the back and take it for
a real drive. I also do have 5 tires instead of 4. This one's going to be a spare that
I'll mount in the truck bed. We'll have plenty of room back here once I clean up the wires,
and I'll put the spare back here when I go off-roading and maybe take it off for driving
around town, because with an electric vehicle you do increase your range with the less weight
that you have inside, which is why Tesla's don't include a spare with their cars. I assume
they did the math and figured out that people don't get flats very often and when they do
it's worth it to just get a tow. But as for me, I will have a spare on hand if I ever
need it.
So the portal axle filler plates have been upgraded, the new tires are in place. And
I think since we're here we might as well check to make sure everything's working. If
we come over here to the ignition, listen for the second click, flip us into forward.
And when I push on the throttle we should get tires spinning. Nice. Everything is still
working but that only covers one of the four fluids I talked about earlier. There are three
left. For the next splash of liquid, we have to get the Humvee off the ground. I'm just
saying, those look pretty nice from the air. Also, it'll be way nice when I can walk around
my garage without the fear of being zapped.
The thing we're working on next is the transfer case, the thing that allows us to have 4-wheel
drive. And that is right here. I also totally forgot that since we have a hole in the floor,
we could have done all of this with the Humvee on the ground...but since we're here...
One interesting thing with this transfer case is since it's universal it can be clocked
at any angle. To compensate for that, advanced adapters has given a side tube so no matter
what angle the transfer case is clocked at, you can still see what level the fluid is.
So once we put our two quarts of fluid inside we can mark the level and then just fill it
to that same point when it comes time to change the oil. All of these gear oils are slightly
different – different viscosities, different colors. The stuff going into the transfer
care kind of looks like liquid cotton candy and probably just as unhealthy. I'll have
to change the oil in this transfer case after about 500 miles, the break in period, and
sew this permanent marker line as well as the zip tie will help me know which level
to fill it back up to once I drain it all out. And the third liquid, this royal purple
stuff, goes inside of the EV torque box from Torque Trends. It's basically the same concept
as all the rest of them. It's a gear box that generates heat and needs lubrication. The
little thing you see here on the top is where air can vent out as it heats up or cools down,
but for the most part everything is self-contained. If things get super intense and I find that
these gear boxes are heating up more than they should, I can always add a small pump
and circulate the oil through them.
And there you have it. All of the liquids that I'm using inside of my electric vehicle.
The 4th is the coolant which we haven't gotten to yet, but we have built the manifolds and
I'll explain all of that in a future video...might not be the next one. The pile of parts that
we don't need is getting bigger and the pile of parts that we need to install is getting
really small. And huge thanks again to Trail Built Off Road for sponsoring this video and
hooking us up with some sweet wheels and tires. As always, wheels and tires are kind of a
personal preference so I'm curious to hear what you would have gone with. Would you have
chromed it out, gone with with more spokes, or maybe slapped some Tesla wheels on there?
Let me know down in the comments.
We're getting super close to finishing and I'm super excited. If you haven't subscribed
yet hit that subscribe button, turn on notifications so you don't miss when we pull this thing
out of the garage for real. Come hang out with me on Twitter and Instagram. And thanks
a ton for watching. I'll see you around.