1985 Mitsubishi Montero SWB -

8/22/17

I've been owning (more wrenching than driving) Mitsubishis since I was 15, and I still have my first car in the garage, a 1990 Eagle Talon TSi.  

Over the years I have owned:
-1995 Eclipse GST
-1992 Eagle Talon non-turbo
-1999 Eclipse GSX
-1999 Eclipse GSX #2 (http://bringatrailer.com/listing/1999-mitsubishi-eclipse-gsx-2/)

And still own:
-1990 Eagle Talon TSi (My first car)

After getting suckered into the Mitsubishi offroad scene by the Auto-Offtopic podcast crew my girlfriend and I are now addicted to all things Montero (damn you!) .  Brad and Andrew promptly got me up to speed on what to look for, and ADD helped give a little push as well!  

Browsing craigslist nationally, I happened to find this beauty and promptly picked it up.  It is a 1985 2.6L 5-speed with 132k miles and no body rust.  

The person selling the car still lived in Oregon, but his cousin was keeping the vehicle for him in Bay City, MI.  Long story short, the seller was up in the mountains without service, but we somehow worked out a deal with his brother and cousin, and drove away with the truck and title!  The ride home was interesting, as this was both our first time driving a montero.  Upon getting it home, I noticed the throttle return spring was binding and not allowing the weber carb to fully open to WOT, only two of the plates were opening.  Fixed that up and now it drives quite nice!

It appears to have only been in OR from 2011+, and before that only in CA.  It is nearly rust free, only surface rust on some subframe components.  It has a weber carb that needs tuning, and some toyota 15x7 wheels and 31x10.5x15 tires, other than that it is bone stock.  I will be working with my new-to-mitsubishi-wrenching girlfriend to restore this beauty to its true glory.

Plans are:
-Maintenance cathcup: all fluids, belts, plugs, wires, brakes, etc.
-New KYB shocks (can't beat the price)
-Newer 31x10.5x15 tires (current ones are very very old)
-Exhaust needs to be replaced, maybe a header is in the cards from DG headers in CA...
-Keep it stock appearing and drive it!

Check out my IG @engiekev for pictures and videos of the truck!  

9/11/2017

Making progress.  The GF cleaned the original carpet with a powerwasher, pulled the seats, and washed the seat cover upholstery.  Next step is cleaning up the base shell, and finding some sound deadener to lay down before the carpet.

Mechanicals getting some attention too: fluid change for the transfer case, rear diff, front diff, and transmission.  Valve cover gasket in progress, will also be checking the valve lash and adjusting the jet valves, changing the plugs, and checking/setting base timing.  Engine looks clean!

9/25/17

More progress!  Finished the full fluid swap, valve cover gasket, spark plugs (old plugs some were finger tight  :o ), and roughly tuning the carb.  I will be installing a wideband AFR meter to tune the carb, I work for OEMs doing engine calibration so a carb is fun to work on.

Interior deep cleaning is nearly complete, seat covers were pulled and washed in the washing machine, carpet power washed.

Will be adding sound deadener material on the carpet, and on various parts of the body before we re-install the interior.  

I called a local audio shop, they quoted waaay to high but the sales person was nice enough to give some cheaper recommendations. He recommended going to home Depot or Lowe's, looking for 1/4 to 1/8 in thick thermal insulation for walk in freezers, and 1/2 thick compressed foam.  

I didn't find either, but got 1/8" thick pipe insulation that looked similar enough, and regular carpet foam. 

We installed the piping insulation in the doors inside, and outside panels, and then recovered the factory plastic seal using a plastic drop cloth and permatex right stuff. The doors now sound extremely sold when closing, haven't driven the car to see how it improves road noise but it must be better than the stock bare metal

There is a lot of good info out there on proper sound insulation, basically you need some mass damper on any panel that will vibrate.  This cheap stuff works good enough.  There's a product you can spray on called lizard skin, but its very expensive.  To do this the right way, I would've bought some legit mass dampers for sound deadening, but this was on the cheap and I needed something today!

Started with this (AFTER cleaning, everything was covered with a thick layer of california desert dust! Had to powerwash and degrease the whole interior first!):

Door Panel starting point:

After sound deadener:

After re-sealing with drop cloth plastic and permatex right stuff:

Materials used:

0.125-in Foam Plumbing Pipe Wrap Insulation 
Item #:28929 Model #: FV516 (LOWES)
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Frost-King-0-125-in-Foam-Plumbing-Pipe-Wrap-Insulation/1081449

1 Roll was enough to do both doors, would need more to do the rear trunk and the wheel wells.  Since we dont have rear carpet yet, we will wait to do the wheel wells.
 

9/10/17

Busted our butts today getting the front end rebuilt and finishing the interior.  Pics to come of the finished interior, it may have ended up with some Sedona, AZ style kitchy seat covers and steering wheel cover to protect them and keep a sweet retro desert theme.

Before the work, after a thorough degreasing and power washing.

Front end getting some love

9/11/17

Got the front end done on the both sides finally!  New rotors, pads, and re-greased the sliders on the calipers (both sides were frozen!).  Suspension replaced: struts w/ KYB Gas-a-Just, upper ball joint, lower ball joint, inner/outer tie rod ends, sway bar bushings and links, and the steering arms on both sides.  Need to do a string alignment to get it close, but it should drive much nicer now!

Before

Finished

9/11/17

Also had the chance to use some of this excellent "Shinetsu" grease on all the door seals.  I've heard it is used at the plant/factory for some vehicles.  It really restores the softness to the rubber seals, also works great on trim, works much better than Back to Black.

Before:

After:

The dirt and old rubber that comes off with the grease:

Before on trim:

After:

 

Need to update this with latest info, this was all from a couple years ago when we first bought the truck.  Not much has changed except for a carb rebuild, added fuel pressure regulator (weber doesn't like stock fuel pressure), got some new tires, added a vintage Clarion radio, and took it to Radwood Detroit!

Thanks for posting. Mitsubishis don't get a lot of love. Monteros are cool.

This is my daily, autocrossed it a few weeks ago when my Miata wouldn't start.

04 Ralliart. I've had it for 10 years. Great car.

Love these! When I was around 11 years old our family had a SWB Pajero and I adored that truck.

My uncle used to have a Dodge Raider badged version from the same timeframe. They're nice little rock crawlers.

engiekev said:

9/11/17

Also had the chance to use some of this excellent "Shinetsu" grease on all the door seals.  I've heard it is used at the plant/factory for some vehicles.  It really restores the softness to the rubber seals, also works great on trim, works much better than Back to Black.

Because of this post I just ordered a tube. Strangely excited about rubbing down all the unseen bits on my '91 LS400.

I'll be following along closely, as I'm on the hunt for a SWB Montero/Raider myself, though i'm aiming for a V6 one because in this area I might get killed trying to get on the highway with the 4-banger :)

I ordered a tube too. Good to see you here. The time travel confused me for a second since i knew about the truck from IG first. 

Weather is beginning to cool off here. It's almost Montero season in Vigo-land. 

In reply to irish44j :

Really the 4G54 is not bad, as long as you don't go bigger than 31" tires! It does just fine in Detroit traffic :) .  The early V6 engines were not much more powerful (139hp vs 110hp) and the 4-banger is ridiculously easy to work on.  Plus it would seem the G54B turbo starion bits bolt on, as the long block is essentially the same, as far as I know these are the parts needed: G54B exhaust manifold, turbo, intercooler, intake manifold / throttle body, ECU, wiring harness (along with some fab work for oil feed/return, piping).

engiekev said:

In reply to irish44j :

Really the 4G54 is not bad, as long as you don't go bigger than 31" tires! It does just fine in Detroit traffic :) .  The early V6 engines were not much more powerful (139hp vs 110hp) and the 4-banger is ridiculously easy to work on.  Plus it would seem the G54B turbo starion bits bolt on, as the long block is essentially the same, as far as I know these are the parts needed: G54B exhaust manifold, turbo, intercooler, intake manifold / throttle body, ECU, wiring harness (along with some fab work for oil feed/return, piping).

Yeah, I want nothing to do with Starion engines lol. I've known several people with those cars and they cursed those engines! The main thing with the V6 is its availability (and ability to swap to the newer 3.5 from newer Monteros with little problem) . I want to build mine more along the lines of the Dakar Pajeros (granted, they were heavily-worked 4G54s) so i can use it for recce at stage rally events and stuff like that. So would prefer something with a bit more oomph eventually. Plus, it's a multi-hour highway drive to the nearest real ORV trails, so having a bit more power on the highway would be nice.

That said, I'll probably buy whatever the "best deal" that pops up is, regardless of engine or transmission. TBD. 

Ah you're right about availability, those v6s were put in everything.  We have a gen2 Montero as well that needed a new cylinder head, found one that came from a Chrysler minivan! Good luck on your search, I'd recommend checking the Facebook montero group for trucks too.

And funny you posted the Dakar gen1, recently ran into a local who is is replicating the livery, pretty sweet!  We aren't that ambitious but a paint job is in the future.

In reply to engiekev :

Funny how similar these two dissimilar liveries are. 

What is the #6 car? I want to say S14 Nissan but it's not quite right.  Maybe Thunderbird but not quite right either.

In reply to John Welsh :

That's a Thunderbird alright, looks like a 91-93 to my eye.

No real updates, but we did take it to Radwood Detroit last fall and had a blast!  

Plans for 2020:

Swap to 87+ 2.6L exhaust manifold, fab stainless exhaust.

Vinyl wrap exterior

Find OEM "pomengranete" wheels and upgrade to better AT tires

If i was productive and had turbo'd my Montero already I'd sell you my 87+ exhaust manifold. 

I'm going to Radwood Austin next month and for whatever reason I never once thought about taking my Montero. That seems like a weird oversight now that i think about it, but it kinda gets lost in the shuffle considering basically ALL my cars are Radwood stuff.  It's probably my most reliable radwood-era vehicle, though!!

Dang, I just bought one! I need to fabricate a flange for it though, since I just have the upper manifold and it goes down to a 3 bolt (?) flange with two exits.  I plan to make the exhaust stainless and 2 1/4", nothing crazy, want to keep the torque down low.

Take the montero! It was definitely a hit at Radwood Detroit, the only one there.

I really would like to do a turbo conversion, seems like its pretty easy if you can find G54B donor parts; turbo, exh manifold, intake manifold, throttle body, distributor, engine wiring harness.  Is that it other than custom fab work?  Blow through carb seems like a pain in the ass, and standalone is too expensive.

Hmmmm

I have a starion exh manifold, intake manifold, and a tbi unit that needs to be rebuilt. I was planning to run it off microsquirt. I don't have an actual starion turbo but i was planning to use an adapter plate to a T3 which i have a bunch of old ones sitting around. Turbo oil feed comes off an oil filter housing sandwich adapter which i have. Oil return goes into the front timing cover iirc so i'll just drill and tap a fitting into my  timing cover.  I'm actually more ok with the tbi-ness of it than i am with running the stock computer setup. I don't think it'll be very limiting once it's on a standalone. People have made 300+whp through the tbi setup. It seems the main failing point isn't the tbi fuel distribution or injector limits, it's just that people don't get their head around how it works and end up blowing it up and giving up on it before they get decent results. 

Seems like MegaSquirt is the way to go then for sure!  The wiring harness would be comically simple: power, ground, injectors, MAP, TPS, some sort of RPM input,  Wideband O2, that's it?

Probably could get away with some colder plugs and always run 93 octane.

What do you need to do for ignition adjustment under boost? Does the Starion distributor have a boost reference for load, or can you reuse the Montero distributor?

Looks like these guys figured out a "plug and play" MS setup:

http://www.starquestclub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=98678

Vigo I need your guidance!

I found a somewhat local deal on a Starion whole engine and ECU setup, very tempting to jump on that and look into the turbo swap.  I think the question is: can I make the Starion ECU and wiring harness work, or would I be better off with a standalone megasquirt from scratch? Since its only controlling 2 injectors, no spark control, should be pretty easy to make a wiring harness.

I figure if kept at low boost, and a new replacement clutch, should be OK to withold the extra torque and keep trans happy. Any more torque than the stock clutch can handle may put the trans at risk.

So to summarize parts list needed, basically unbolt everything from the intake and exhaust side of Starion 2.6L turbo head and put on the 2.6L Montero head:

1. Turbo: Exhaust Manifold, Turbocharger, coolant & oil lines, intake, charge air pipes, intercooler, blow off valve
2. Intake TBI: Intake manifold, injectors, throttle body,
3. Ignition: Distributor for vacuum/boost advance, different heat range plugs,
4. Engine Management: ECU, wiring, Wideband O2 sensor,  MAF
5. Fuel: upgraded in-tank fuel pump, fuel pressure regulator for boost, 

OR I can scrap this whole mess of an idea, and stick with a simple setup with the Weber carb and fabricate a new exhaust sytem with the 87+ exhaust manifold.  Really we only drive it lightly on road and a turbo probably wont make much of a difference off road. AND we bought the truck for less than $3000, is it worth dumping $1000+ into a turbo setup? My inner boost boi says yes!