Comparing the Italeri and Academy parts.
Here are the grills. Academy part on top. The slots for the headlights on the Academy part is thicker than the Italeri part. I don't have the clear parts from Academy so I need to use the Italeri grill where the Italeri clear parts fit correctly.
Here are the Academy and Italeri tailgates. The Academy has AM General printed on it. I don't know when they stopped putting AM General on the tailgates but I will be using the Italeri tailgate as it doesn't have the AM General printed on it.
Here are the Italeri and Academy parts test fitted. The Academy hood and main body sits on the Italeri chassis. I also used the Italeri side body parts, tailgate and windshield frame. I used the Italeri windshield frame as I don't have the Academy clear parts.
Only problem using the Italeri grill on the Academy hood is that the Italeri grill is slightly larger than the Academy part. I will need to file down the inside edges of the Academy hood to fit the Italeri grill. You can also see that the Italeri windshield frame doesn't fit the Academy hood. There is quite a large gap between the hood and frame.
The Italeri rear chassis alignment pins fit the Academy parts but the two forward alignment pins don't align as shown in the photo below. I will fix that by trimming them off and drilling into the chassis in the new location and use some plastic rod to get a better fit.
With the Italeri windshield frame not fitting on the Academy hood correctly, I had to switch the main body sides to the Academy sides to fit the academy windshield frame. You can see now that the gap between the hood and windshield is much tighter. I was originally using the Italeri windshield frame so that I could use the Italeri windshield clear parts that fit but I need to use the Academy windshield frame so it fits the hood correctly. I will need to file down the Italeri clear parts to fit the Academy part. The lights on top of the cross beam will be cut off as the version I am building doesn't have those lights on it.
I will be building something similar to this HMMWV. It is a Marine Force Recon HMMWV used in the opening days of OIF in 2003. This one has the brush guard, raised intake and exhaust. I will be using the brush guard and raised exhaust from the Tamiya M1025 kit. The raised intake will be from the Academy kit. Notice it also has a toilet seat between the brush guard and grill. I will try to scratch build one but as stated before, my scratch building skills are not that good.
The Marines used different types of HMMWV's with different setups. In this image you can see that it doesn't have the brush guard, the intake is lowered and no raised exhaust either. As stated above, mine will be more like the one above.
I will be using the Legend .50cal and pedestal mount. It is the same pedestal mount I used on the other Italeri M998 HMMWV but that one I used the Live Resin M240 on it.