trumant (Forum Supporter) said:I read through this thread last night and this morning, and you've made me fall completely in love with the platform. It just pushes all of the child of the 80s buttons and the end result you've got is really incredible. The custom pinstripes and paint and interior plaid....just wow!
Thanks! It's nice that these things are still pretty inexpensive compared to some of the other popular 4x4s from back then. Kind of a well-kept secret here in the USA.
Mezzanine said:irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:
First, I love this thread and the Montero is looking excellent. But can we talk about this battery for a moment? The Usable is a pretty brilliant marketing slogan. "I mean, it's Usable, right?"
lol, yeah it came with that. I saw that when I bought the truck and was like "wow, this battery company doesn't pretend to be anything other than straight-up functional!" lol. No fancy colors, no "awesome cranking power!," no marketing at all other than "It's better than a non-usable battery" haha.... Since it came in the Blue Raider, I expect it was the "cheapest battery you can buy in Asheville NC" haha. Funny since most of my other vehicles have Optima Yellow Tops.
I wonder if it's a "reconditioned" battery? There was a super sketchy shop in a very rough part the city here that did refurb batteries. I bought a car that had one, and it lived for at least 16 years of daily use by me after that. Either that car had perfect voltage regulation, or it was a magic battery.
Don't give up on The Usable until...well...it isn't.
Mezzanine said:I wonder if it's a "reconditioned" battery? There was a super sketchy shop in a very rough part the city here that did refurb batteries. I bought a car that had one, and it lived for at least 16 years of daily use by me after that. Either that car had perfect voltage regulation, or it was a magic battery.
Don't give up on The Usable until...well...it isn't.
I did a bit of research and apparently "The Usable" is made by Penn/Deka and they are batteries that have some kind of blemish so they can't be sold as Deka, so they just relabel them and sell them as an off-brand.
In other news, some new pedal covers I ordered came in. Because bare metal clutch pedal is somewhat annoying...
I also made stuff for the rally car, because I was bored and wanted to do something functional but silly...
Our local Deka dealer sells the Usable batteries, as you said they are "blems". I've used several of them over the years and always had great success with them.
Just caught up after a ~7 page absence. Glad you're really enjoying it!!
Moving a bit slower these days, but still have some plans! And need to actually go do something with it :)
With my FJ Trails Team leaving, my friend offered this to me:
Still very tempted
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1990-mitsubishi-montero-3/
we had this exact pajero (maybe a 89) new back in the day, paid for by the UN
mr2s2000elise said:With my FJ Trails Team leaving, my friend offered this to me:
Still very tempted
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1990-mitsubishi-montero-3/
we had this exact pajero (maybe a 89) new back in the day, paid for by the UN
That's actually a pretty damn good deal considering it's a manual V6 with the off-road package.... Probably a pretty rare one
irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:mr2s2000elise said:With my FJ Trails Team leaving, my friend offered this to me:
Still very tempted
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1990-mitsubishi-montero-3/
we had this exact pajero (maybe a 89) new back in the day, paid for by the UN
That's actually a pretty damn good deal considering it's a manual V6 with the off-road package.... Probably a pretty rare one
Oh I am sure its going to keep climbing ...I will keep a few bids on there..lets see what happens. For me the sunroof makes the deal. ours had the exact one. Before that we had the TOyota Master Ace Surf with dual sunroof and all safari glass all around. What a fabulous machine that was
mr2s2000elise said:Was waiting for my neighbors to go live
Already going for $4600?? That is quite high for 151k, ripped seats and the exterior is not original at all (painted bumpers, vinyl) . The LWB posted earlier is a much better buy so far. I never would have guessed Monteros would go for much on BAT, I suppose that's good for us who already own them!
engiekev said:mr2s2000elise said:Was waiting for my neighbors to go live
Already going for $4600?? That is quite high for 151k, ripped seats and the exterior is not original at all (painted bumpers, vinyl) . The LWB posted earlier is a much better buy so far. I never would have guessed Monteros would go for much on BAT, I suppose that's good for us who already own them!
Damn, with this being basically the most desirable/rare of the Gen1s (SWB, manual, V6, offroad package) mabye I should throw this up on BOT lol....if crappy old ones are going for $5k, this should be worth a cool $10k lol.
In other news, I may actually take it wheeling this weekend. Some guys from rallycross are headed up to a local trail (Andy describes it as a "beginner trail" so probably perfect for a shakedown), which is only about 60 miles from here. So I'll probably do that. It also got me motivated to finally order a few things that I want in the "gear" category and hadn't gotten around to getting: 1) snatch strap - I have a regular tow strap for the rally car + D-rings, but figured having a snatch is never a bad thing since I'm not going to put a winch on for the time being. 2) some comms. I have CB in the Sequioa, but seems like most people these days are running GMRS radios so I ordered up a mobile GMRS set. The other upside is a much smaller antenna, which is good since I don't really want to put a big stick on the roff to get a good ground plane for CB. In any case, now I'll have both available if I need them. And yes, because I'm a good boy I did get a license for it. I mean, the license thing is kind of BS, but it does support the repeater infrastructure to some degree and I'm fine with paying my share for federally-funded things I use. I know most people don't get it, but whatever. I'm a Fed, so gotta keep it on the up and up lol..... And 3) an air pump. I have a small pump I use for the rally car, but it's pretty undersized for larger tires (and really, not great for even the rally car). So ordered up a nice Viair setup that should move some decent CFMs and be easily swappable between my vehicles and stuff. I love the ARB setup Kev has, but not mobile enough for me (and not cheap enough lol).
In the meantime, another package showed up. Totally forgot about ordering this:
So yeah, that's an OEM rear wiper arm (from a Galloper, but it's OEM fit for a Gen1 Monty/Raider also, of course). No pics, but I compared it to the Montero Sport wiper arm I got at the junkyard a couple weeks ago and it's a couple inches longer and with a tighter angle on the turn of the arm. I had planned to just sell it when it got here, but after fitting it, it puts the wiper blade in a better place and wipes more of the visible glass than the Monty Sport one did, so I'l just use it.
Here's the part number if anyone cares...
I had hoped to do a few little things on the Raider tonight, but we had some crazy storms....60mph wind, massive rain, some hail. Had a 10-foot branch just miss landing on the rally car (which is 50 feet from any tree), and a 5-foot branch somehow impaled itself vertically in the grid of the Sequoia's roof rack, which was mildly amusing (better there than in the windshield)
Anyhow, I did get a couple of items in the mail, as previously noted, they're just sitting on the workbench at the moment...
Snatch strap (i know, there are cheaper ones, perhaps better ones, but whatever. This is a known quantity and didn't feel like researching deep into straps...
A much nicer air pump than the one I previously had. I had a few others in mind too, but ended up getting this one for various reasons....
And some comms...
Got the radio installed today. It was convenient I left multiple switched/open power wires (directly to the aux fuse box) in the center console, so i was able to directly hookup there, which lets me have the radio on switched power. Yes, I need to do something a bit fancier than my current method of labeling the switches...
In any case, decided to mount it on the side of the center console, so it's within reach and I don't have the mic cord hanging in the way of other stuff. I may move it elsewhere in the future (I have some ideas), but this should do for now since I want comms if I hit the trails this weekend to do a shakedown run.
This one came with a small (like 6" mag-mount antenna), so for the moment the wire is just running down the passenger A-pillar behind the door seal with the antenna on the front passenger corner. Will figure out something a bit less ghetto at some point, but this makes it easily removable for the moment.
Hey so finally got this thing off the pavement. Today I rolled about 80 miles to Woodstock, Virginia to meet up with Andy Thomas (who we've rallycrossed with for years) and a couple of his buddies to hit Peters Mill Run, an 8-mile (and 8 mile back) trail described online as "moderately rocky and linear." It is also apparently a "Jeep Badge of Honor" trail, which from what I gather seems to be some thing where Jeep guys get a bunch of badges that go on their vehicles for trails they've done, or something like that. I'm half tempted to register for whatever that is and just get their badges and put them somewhere they can't be seen, just for my own amusement......
In any case, we met up at the local walmart and rolled out a few miles to the trailhead. It was Andy in his GMC 2500 (?) with 34s and lockers, a friend of his in a Tacoma, and another guy with a Lexus GX470.
It's a nice, scenic trail and starts with an immediate pretty sizable climb over some pretty rocky (but not terribly loose) stuff for the first mile or so, with some switchbacks. Seems like there were some skidplates being hit here and there, but the Raider is so small and maneuverable it's easy to pick a good line. I ran pretty much the entire time in 4WD low and 2nd gear, only using first for a few places I had to stop to wait for the truck ahead of me to climb. All in all, it climbed very well, no slipping anywhere (I was aired down to about 20psi or a bit less).
After a while it leveled off and got a bit less rough and we stopped to take a group photo before a gaggle of people in late-model Jeeps showed up to do the same, on their way back out..
We proceeded on to the other end of the trail and had lunch...
Then headed back the other way. Apparently there are some stream crossings usually, and I figured with all the recent rain in the DC area they may be good, but they were only a bit damp. but there was a good amount of muddy areas on the trail and the Raider walked through them as if they were tarmac (no, these pics don't match up - the guys weren't really stopping for photo shots so I don't have any "action" lol)....
Anyhow, made it back the other way and off the trail. A couple of the guys rolled to another trail but I had to head back home to make dinner with the neighbors, so got aired back up and on the road
So, a few thoughts:
- The "bouncy" suspension seat base is awesome. After I got it dialed in to the right weight range and unlocked, basically I could lean forward a bit and move almost totally independent of the rig rocking back and forth (other than my foot and my hands).
- Short wheelbase does make for a bit of a choppy offroading, but this thing is like a Miata on the trail - small enough to fit anyplace and maneuver around anything - a big difference from Andy's truck, which is about twice the length and had some adventures trying to pull off for oncoming traffic in a few cases. it's also considerably smaller than pretty much all the modern Jeeps and other SUVs.
- In some review someplace the Gen1 is referred to as a "sure-footed donkey" and I think that's totally accurate. It never lost any lines I put it on, never lost grip anywhere, and was always unrefined enough to know it is, indeed, a utility donkey and not a fancy high-dollar trail buggy.
- Powertrain-wise, it had zero issue in any situation, even steep uphill starts. Of course running in low range, so not a real surprise, but the V6 has proven to be more torquey than I would expect based on its "on-paper" ratings. This being a Mitsubishi V6, I kept a close eye on the temp gauge, but it never went up (and it was in the 90s and extremely humid today). I did run my electric aux fan the whole time as well but did not run A/C until we were off the trail. Also cruises at 65-70 just fine on the 70 miles of highway home, though man this thing is all about wind noise, no matter what configuration you have the windows in, lol.
- A few squeaks and rattles to figure out, and I also would get an occasional "bang" from the front right when at certain uneven areas - I suspect swaybar bind, perhaps. Will have to take a look at things.
- I definitely have a slow leak from the rear main seal, as there is a bit of oil spray on the crossmembers. not enough to actually drip when parked, and no measurable loss on the dipstick after about 200 miles of driving today. So, I'll probably go with "not caring" as opposed to actually going through all the effort to put another new one in, unless it gets substantially worse. Otherwise, everything worked fine.
- The VIAIR pump I got is great. It took about 30 seconds to get each tire up 10psi to road pressures.
So anyhow, happy nothing broke and it is just as capable as I hoped it would be. I have some stuff to do (definitely need some skidplates to do any more substantial trails....).
Never been off-roading like that in my life but it damn sure looks fun.
You expect to make it a semi-regular thing or more trying to get a feel for the Montero's capabilities?
trumant (Forum Supporter) said:Never been off-roading like that in my life but it damn sure looks fun.
You expect to make it a semi-regular thing or more trying to get a feel for the Montero's capabilities?
The only downside is it's at least a couple hours to most of the decent places around here to wheel, but yeah, I'll go when I can, though I doubt I'll be like some of the Jeep people I know who basically do this stuff every other weekend. . I still prefer going FAST offroad (i.e. rally), but that's a totally different kind of thing and I enjoy the challenge of dealing more technically with terrain. This is definitely a bit more relaxing, though. I'm looking forward to trying some more challenging terrain once I get the appropriate protection on the underside of this thing, now that I know it actually works :)
And for the record, I've done very little offroading "like this" before....I mean, I've been on many fire roads, and even run a rally stage in the Sequoia once, and slogged through muddy pits in rally service, and such. But never really did a "trail run" all that much, other than one short outing back in the day when i had my Cherokee.
I do enjoy having somehting fairly unique on the trail...got more than one comment from other rigs as we passed by them at 2mph on the tight trail, and a Brazilian guy in the staging area ran righ over to talk about his Pajero in Brazil and how great they are. I'd say on the trails today the only thing more unusual than this Raider was a beautiful vintage 2-door land cruiser that looked way too nice to wheel, who was by himself and specifically gave me a thumbs up when he drove by where we were parked, so that was kind of cool :)
self-reminder: pull the steering wheel hub and put some dialectric grease on the horn contact surface to get rid of the annoying squeak :D
Saw one of these little rigs and thought of this thread. It's also a SWB, manual transmission; just not quite as nice as yours-
Headed out to the pick and pull today for two purposes: First, because I saw there was a Sequoia in the open lot (usually they're in the private no-pull lot), which I got a handful of parts off of for the tow rig that I've been looking to grab. And second to go find a trailer hitch for my next project. After much browsing of the SUVs in the lot, finally settled on a big, heavy, beefy hitch assembly off a Suburban and pulled it and lugged it to the counter (man, it was not light...)
I got this one because it's very wide with a lot of 2" bar, and very large end plates to give me some 1/4" heavy plate to cut up. I think I can used this for both my Raider front hitch project as well as a hitch mount on the trailer for the winch tray. So got right to work cutting this thick-ass metal up. One of these days I'll get a plasma cutter, but until then it's angle grinders and sawzall...
After much measuring and pretty careful cutting, mocked it up in place roughly.
You can see there's a gap at each end, and that's intentional as I want larger 1/4 plates at the ends to spread the load. You may also notice it's turned around backward so the "thick" end of the receiver is actually not on the outside. If I was going to put a heavy trailer load on this, I'd want that outward for extra support of the receiver, but since this will be used primarily for winch/recovery with a pulling load, not too concerned. Plus, I want to make it sit flush with the bumper so I can hide it under the license plate.
So after measuring and mocking up, marked the bumper and cut a 2 1/2" hole, and then used a jigsaw to turn the hole into a square (didn't take a pic of that but you'll see it later)...
test fit with the bumper on, where you can see the receiver sitting flush with the hole
test fit with the winch platform on just to make sure the holes for the hitch pin is shallow enough to be reached with it turned around backward. It actually turned out just about right, with the platform close flush with the bumper - but a bit of interference of the Hellas with the platform handles, so may or may not modify the handles to get them out of the way (or just turn the lights when I need to have it in.)
Once I knew that the general setup fit well, I cut out some end plates from the huge end plates on the Suburban hitch. Here's one of the test-fitted (using a single bolt into the OEM skidplate mount hole to hold it in place). These plates will be welded on and partially boxed. Hopefully my little Hobart can handle this thickness of metal. Gonna have to lay it down pretty slow to get sufficient penetration - though frankly this is probably going to be way overbuilt for the kind of load it would ever see.
With both plates on, I mocked up the main bar again - pretty happy with my measuring and cutting, it's damn near exact and the bar actually stays in place by friction/pressure alone in this pic (nothing is actually holding it), so that's pretty good.
So, that's where I am at the moment. Tomorrow I'll do some welding.
That's a really well executed front hitch! So the idea with the hitch winch platform is so it can be swapped between vehicles? Or just easily removed when you're thinking it's not needed?
This thread is really pushing me to get our Gen1 on the trails again, they really are a blast off road! Surprisingly capable, feels like a tractor that was made for conquering rough terrain. I ordered new tires (Cooper Discoverer AT 235/75r15, smaller than 31.5 but can't beat $75 a tire!) and plan to do some trail camping trips soon. You've really got me thinking to get some legit Hella lamps, they have the perfect Dakar look.
If you're planning to do this with a little mig welder, just grind big chamfers in the hitch tubes. Then you'll have to weld multiple passes, but you'll get full penetration. I'm sure you already know this...
My neighbor has a crusty SWB Raider that he uses as his yard goat. This thread makes me want to ask him about it...
engiekev said:That's a really well executed front hitch! So the idea with the hitch winch platform is so it can be swapped between vehicles? Or just easily removed when you're thinking it's not needed?
This thread is really pushing me to get our Gen1 on the trails again, they really are a blast off road! Surprisingly capable, feels like a tractor that was made for conquering rough terrain. I ordered new tires (Cooper Discoverer AT 235/75r15, smaller than 31.5 but can't beat $75 a tire!) and plan to do some trail camping trips soon. You've really got me thinking to get some legit Hella lamps, they have the perfect Dakar look.
Yep, since I"m not made of money I only want to own one winch (plus, I rarely have had a need for one). I'm just going to put a mid-size 5000# capacity winch on there (and carry a snatch block to increase its pull capacity). The 5000# winch weighs about 35lbs vs. around 70 for a 9000#, and that's not extra weight I want to carry. The 5000 should be more than sufficient to recover the lightweight Raider or pull a car onto my trailer (hell, I did that with a1500# ATV winch last time). So I'll mount it on a hitch platform and then can use it either front or back on the Raider, front or back on the Sequioa, or on the trailer (I'll install a hitch receiver at the front fo the bed). I'll have both a short power lead (for front-mount) and a long 25' power lead (for rear/trailer) with alligator clamps on the battery end so I can hook up directly. I may eventually wire the vehicles for their own permanent leads, but 2awg wire isn't cheap....And also of course I won't have to carry all that stuff around if I'm not going someplace I'd actually need a winch.
Yeah, definitely feels like an all-terrain tractor. Just chugs over everything without drama or slipping - if not as comfortably as a longer wheelbase truck would have.
Mezzanine said:If you're planning to do this with a little mig welder, just grind big chamfers in the hitch tubes. Then you'll have to weld multiple passes, but you'll get full penetration. I'm sure you already know this...
My neighbor has a crusty SWB Raider that he uses as his yard goat. This thread makes me want to ask him about it...
Yep, exactly what I did.
I'm happy this one wasn't crusty. I love mechanical stuff, but absolutely despise doing rust repair (and I'm terrible at it).
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