It's stupid cheap to replace all the suspension and brake components, I think we got all our front end, brake parts, and struts for front and rear around $200 on RockAuto.
It's stupid cheap to replace all the suspension and brake components, I think we got all our front end, brake parts, and struts for front and rear around $200 on RockAuto.
engiekev said:It's stupid cheap to replace all the suspension and brake components, I think we got all our front end, brake parts, and struts for front and rear around $200 on RockAuto.
Prices have gone up a bit, but I shouldn't be too far over that, unless I spring for some nicer shocks (OME or Bilsteins, we'll see)
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Tonight tore into the front suspension. Nothing too complicated here though I had a brain fart and for some reason popped the upper balljoint before I took the CV axle out, so that made things more difficult than it needed to be and tore the diff oil seal (was gonna replace anyhow, so not too worried about that). Also sheared off one of the bumpstop bolts, so I'll have to drill that out of the UCA and re-tap it. Piece of cake.
Definitely will get all-new brake stuff (lines, rotors, and i'll rebuild the calipers). I know some guys upgrade to the Gen2 2-pots - that's something I'll think about in the future when I get the car on the road. The Gen1 stuff is so cheap, no reason to not just stick with it for the moment.
On the upside, the CV axle feels good, smooth movement, no discernable play, and the boots seem to be in good shape, so I don't plan to mess with the axle at all at this point.
While it's all apart, everything will get cleaned up and painted, of course.
And stuff being taken apart, cleaned, etc. I pulled the big rolling bench back into the garage (it usually lives in the back of the house since it's so big), beats clogging up my main benches with big suspension parts, and provides some storage.
Pressed out the balljoint from the UCA. Came out nice and easy...
Then drilled out and cleaned the threads on the bumpstop bolt that I snapped off when removing...
Getting some painting, cleaning, etc done.
Should have some new stuff coming in over the next week or so. I think I'll pull the passenger side stuff too, and then the front diff/axle assembly and clean it all up while it's accessible....
A popular upgrade is to swap the auto free hubs for manual locking hubs, genuine Aisin or ARB are the go to choices. Beware of counterfeits!
We still kept the auto hubs, as we don't really do rock climbing or serious off roading.
engiekev said:A popular upgrade is to swap the auto free hubs for manual locking hubs, genuine Aisin or ARB are the go to choices. Beware of counterfeits!
We still kept the auto hubs, as we don't really do rock climbing or serious off roading.
Yep, that's the eventual plan, something I can upgrade to down the road easily. Forbjiw, budget is going toward getting this thing driving and go from there!
last couple days, more of the same. Pulled the passenger side front suspension as well....very exciting. If anything, this truck is pretty easy to take stuff apart. some of the balljoints were a bit of a bitch on the steering but not too bad.
Then poured myself a stout and pulled the front axle/diff assembly. Mostly so I can get better access to the inside frame to clean and paint it, but also so I could clean up the diff good, and paint it as well..
Put the upper control arm and pitman arm on the driver's side, mostly just to get them off the workbench
Then started cleaning up, refreshing, and painting the calipers. Once a new seal kit gets here I'll blow out the pistons and make sure everything looks good in there. And hey, got some decent brake pads off RockAuto for $8 (I know they're decent because I once used them on my Sequoia). Those will do for the time being, though I like to put Hawk HPS on all my street cars, including the SUVs. But $8 is better than $80 at the moment, since it's not driving anywhere
Put a new axle seal on the driver's side....
Oh, and the headlight washer reservoir is.....uh.....a bit brittle. Doens't really matter, I plan to eliminate it anyhow, or at least put a much smaller reservoir there. This seems like serious overkill for the *almost never* I'll actually want to wash my headlights.
As far as front brakes go, mine (stock) feels ok to drive but in reality it can only just barely lock up the 32" front tires when i stand on it. They could use to be better. But, im still not motivated to upgrade and you may not be either, so I'm down with the wait and see approach.
Vigo said:As far as front brakes go, mine (stock) feels ok to drive but in reality it can only just barely lock up the 32" front tires when i stand on it. They could use to be better. But, im still not motivated to upgrade and you may not be either, so I'm down with the wait and see approach.
yeah, it's one of those things where I will probably just use what I have for the moment, to get it on the road, and think about the brake upgrades down the road (2-pots from the later Montero and SR rear axle with discs and locker). I always thought the Sequioa's brakes were totally lousy, but now I use Hawk HPS pads and I find that now, they're "decent." So I think pad choice can make a big difference as well - just that most SUV drivers are fine with "truck" pads that usually have lousy bite since they're made for longevity.
finished cleaning up and painting the diff and cracked it open and drained the oil. Inside looked pretty decent, though there was a bit of water in with the gear oil, and a few little surface rust areas. Nothing that I'm worried about, but cleaned it out good.
all painted up and pretty....
Then finished up painting in the driver's wheel well, as well as some new bedliner coating on the upper wheel wells.
And pulled the entire passenger side suspension, cleaned the frame up (no pics) and painted everything over there
Spent some time sitting in the engine bay cleaning things up, and now i have the whole frame foreward of the firewall completely cleaned up and painted. It was cold and dirty in there.
Then started taking everything apart on the inner driver's side fender to clean it up and paint. All three plastic reservoirs on that side (washer fluid, headlight sprayer reservoir, and coolant reservoir) were brittle and cracked. Looks like the P/O had already "repaired" the sprayer reservoir once. In any case, replacements are cheap so will get those eventually...though I may not get a new headlight sprayer reservoir, mostly because I don't see the point of headlight sprayers lol...
sanded, wire brushed, and painted all the brackets and the cruise control assembly, and did a couple coats of paint on the inner fenderwell, though it was in pretty good shape.
working in a clean vehicle is much nicer...
Headed out in the other truck to get some parts for a different project, and saw a nice sunset
And came back to my 80s-tastic driveway (that's an 85 BMW and an 88 Porsche under cover)
Still waiting on some parts I ordered a while ago. Apparently 80% of my RockAuto stuff came immediately via USPS. The two being delivered by FedEx are taking forever (FedEx sucks, don't know why any company still uses them....). So once that stuff gets here I should be able to put the whole front suspension and axles back together and move on to another section of the cleanup/paint job.
Continued with some things today. Got my caliper rebuild kit in, so rebuilt the driver's front caliper. Piston and bore looked excellent and movement was smooth. So, put new seals in, greased the pins, put in new hardware and pads, reassembled, and good to go there.
blowing the piston out with some air..
Then I put most of the front left back together, and installed the caliper with new soft lines.
Looks a bit better under there than it used to.
Also put the front axle back in
I hate that it just looks like I'm painting stuff - but it's hard to take photos of taking apart and refurbishing/rebuilding greasy axles, bearings, bushigns, and stuff like that, which I'm also doing, just not documenting. But, thanks for bearing with me while I do the boring stuff. You may recall the e30 thread started like this too, but eventually got pretty good :)
It's never boring to see somebody make such quick, high quality progress on a project. Thanks for documenting it.
Not boring at all! Cleaning and refurbishing things goes a long way and makes a huge difference, keep it up!
So taking a quick break, figured I'd answer two questions. Not that you guys asked them, but just as some background.
1. Hey, didn't you do a XJ Cherokee build about 10 years ago, and then sell it pretty quick? Why another vehicle that's "kinda" in a similar category.?
2. You live in the 'burbs of Washington DC - is this going to be a mall-crawler? What do you plan to do with it?
So yeah, first off...when I was in high school in the 90s I drove (alternately) a Chrysler minivan and a 1970 Triumph. One of my good friends had an XJ (which was pretty new at the time) and it was definitely the coolest vehicle in the school parking lot, that I recall, and I was always jealous. Flip forward 15 years or so and my good friend's new girlfriend was selling an XJ for cheap. I decided to do an impulse buy (I knew she needed money, so it was a bit of a charity buy as well) and went and checked it out in a rainstorm, not really checking it out very much, honestly.
It had big stupid wheels with 32s on it, a terrible lift with blocks and spacers, handled badly, brakes were even worse, and had the pre-HO AMC 4.0 engine with Renix engine management (but it was a manual transmission). I spent a year or two trying to undo issues with it and make it better, with no real goal for it. After putting a decent (OME) suspension on it, fixing a bunch of rust, getting some decent wheels and tires, adding a swing-out tire carrier and rack....and then kinda determined I really didn't like driving it. Soon after, my wife got a new 4Runner (2008), and I disliked the XJ even more lol. And a few months later I had to get a new daily driver, so I sold the XJ to get some down-payment cash (for a 2009 WRX). Only took it wheeling once, and never really liked it how I thought I would, based on high school memories.
So why the Raider?
Well, because I like projects and already have a race car and a vintage sportscar, so needed something different. The Raider is unusual (especially in this area) and I like cars that aren't too common (e.g. Jeeps). And I wanted something with better street manners than the XJ (i.e. not a stick axle up front). So, not that the Raider is a Miata, but once I'm done with it I expect it'll be a decent street vehicle - I'm not going crazy off-road setup with it.
What will I do with it? Well, plans always change, but the main plan is kind of three-fold.
1) Have the ability to do some wheeling and exploring when the urge hits me. My Sequioa is too big for that, and it's mostly stock and used for towing, so I don't really want to do any real off-roading with it. My other cars won't do well on much more than logging roads, lol. There are some good trails in GW forest a couple hours from here, other places to explore depending on how far I want to go. We'll see how it goes once I finish it up.
2) It's not a Jeep. There are a million "built" Jeeps around here, mostly mall-crawlers. It would be the easy button to just find on and build it, with huge aftermarket and resources. That's boring. I want something unusual.
3) Rally. Rally is what we do. The Raider will be great as a recce (reconnaissance) vehicle before rallies, so I'll want it set up more for "fast gravel roads" than "slow rock-crawling" primarily. We'll see if those things can exist together, though. IFS helps.
4) Be creative. It's easy enough to just do what everyone else does, buy $$ parts, huge tires, etc. I like to build things, so if it gets a roof rack, I'll build it. If it needs a rollbar, I'll build it, etc etc.
5) Something to do. Living in the 'burbs is boring. When I don't have a car project, I'm a brat and my wife is unhappy. Car projects keep me busy and active. Previous projects since the XJ included my WRX (which was heavily modded), my trailer (for hauling the race car), a Triumph GT6, an e21 BMW, my e30 rally BMW, an '87 Porsche 924S, and various projects on other vehicles I own.
ok now, getting back to work on this thing....
So today's projects mostly more of the same, but UPS did deliver some RockAuto goodness for me in the form of a set of KYB shocks, which were on some kind of clearance sale and withe current coupon were like $80 for the whole set. Seems like some people in the Montero world like them, we'll see. Nothing that can't be upgraded later if I want to.
Put some of the passenger side suspension back together. I mean, as far as you know, since all these black parts don't make for very good photos...
Then disassembled, painted, and rebuilt the other front caliper, which was in just as good functional shape as the other one. I'll still be keeping my eye out for a junkyard Gen 2 brake setup, but that's for later.
So need a quick clarification. For the front LCA main bolts, the FSM says they should be tightened when the vehicle is "unladen." Generally with this kind of setup on other cars, it's usually required that they be tightened with the car on its tires (i.e. "laden"), so as not to tear the bushings when at normal ride position.
So, is the FSM just using the wrong word (Japanese translation?), or is this just a different procedure from usual?
I love your Raider project. I had a crazy thought for an engine. Ford 2.3 turbo Lima with a T-5 and transfercase from a CJ or Wrangler.
RossD said:Ford 2.3 turbo Lima with a T-5 and transfercase from a CJ or Wrangler.
I have an engine for you and everything!
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
I thought your opinion might differ, lol.
In reply to irish44j :
I think what they mean by "unladen" is on the ground but no passengers or payload. "Laden" would be on the ground at maximum gross weight.
RossD said:I love your Raider project. I had a crazy thought for an engine. Ford 2.3 turbo Lima with a T-5 and transfercase from a CJ or Wrangler.
I've hung around with Nonack way too much to have any confidence in the reliability and ease of using such a setup lol.
But in truth, I'm not all that interested in doing something complicated when there are 20 years worth of Mitsubishi V6s that are relatively drop-in and pretty widely available. Plus i already have a (as far as I know) good transmission and transfer case that bolts right up to literally all of them and fits with my driveshafts, frame, etc.
My goal with this thing is really to get it working at minimal cost and reasonably stock-ish form going a route that has been "done before" more or less. I don't have the patience that some of you guys do for "figuring out solutions" to new questions haha.....
TurnerX19 said:In reply to irish44j :
I think what they mean by "unladen" is on the ground but no passengers or payload. "Laden" would be on the ground at maximum gross weight.
yep, that makes sense. My new Haynes manual (which my kids got me for my birthday) more specifically states to do it with the car on the ground at "normal ride height."
It's kind of funny the manual is Dodge-Specific and doesn't note that pretty much everything is identical to the Mighty Max and Montero. There's some marketing lol.... And I find it amusing that the Plymouth Arrow is in there, since I always thought that was that ugly hatchback car - but apparently they also used that name for a rebadged Mighty Max for three years in the early 80s. Go figure.
Swung by Home Depot today and got myself something to make it more pleasant to be in the garage this winter..
It's not that I can't deal with the cold, but when painting a lot of stuff, sub-40 temps make drying time endless. So now that we're warmed up, time for some more painting and cleaning. Today I did basically the entire outer/bottom of the driver's side frame (I'll do all the inner frame faces at once at some point this winter).
Pulled the trailing arm on that side and the rear swaybar for better access back there as well
The bushings on the trailing arms look pretty decent so may not replace them at this time. It's pretty easy to remove if I want to do it in the future.
Put most of the front passenger side stuff back together as well, as well as the front sway bar with all new bushings
And since it was fairly warm (and it won't be like this all winter), decided to paint the gas tank skid, since it was just sitting there...
KYB's are good shocks. Came OEM on my Mazda 3. Of course mine are more tuned for on road performance but still a good shock for the price.
The afternoon started with my wife telling me the TPMS light on her CX-9 was on, so after an inspection of the right rear tire (which looked a bit flat), found a broken piece of a razor blade in the tread. That's annoying. So had to do a plug job before I got to my own projects.
back to the Raider. While cleaning up the radius/trailing arm, I noticed that the front bushings appear to have been replaced at some point with urethane bushings (I assume these aren't stock!). So, they're in great shape, one less thing to replace
With the temperature closing on 60 degrees today, it was a good a time as any to pull the gas tank, since I'd have to have the garages wide open to keep things aired out. So first did a drain.....9 gallons :/ Seems like every project car I get has a fullish tank of fuel. Put a few gallons into the Sequioa (which already had 15 gallons of fresh fuel in it) and the rest into a couple big jugs in the shed. My lawn mower will be well-fed for the next 5 years.......
Then pulled the tank, which was pretty simple.
Unfortunately, managed to twist off the meal feed pipe from the tank since the fuel line was stuck on the hose.
This does bring up another issue - all of the flex hoses in the fuel system, while not appearing to leak, really don't look very good. I'm not a big fan of fuel leaks so would like to replace these, or at least some of them (especially the ones in the rear). Looked them up and really only available in Japan for around $100 each (there are a total of 8), so may have to look into having some made, or seeing if there are some from more recent Monteros or another vehicle that would work. Guess we'll see, but fuel is an area that I don't take chances with, so will do something.
This system has surprisingly large number of vacuum hoses and "modules" of some sort - none of this stuff appears to be present in my OEM '89 parts catalog, so not really sure exactly what it is - I assume emissions - so may see how much of this junk I can delete once I figure out what it all is.
more of it behind the protection panel in the wheel well...looks like some kind of overflow drain for the filler, but the routing is pretty ususual.
WIth the tank out, better access to the rear body and frame so I can clean that all up.
So, did a bit of that until I got tired of being on my back....
What else....so fulled the non-functional tailgate outer handle. For as little rust as this vehicle has overall, not sure what happened here lol......practically the whole thing is made of thin rust at this point
I had ordered a new one from "Gen 1 Montero Man" on the internet, who sells a variety of hard-to-find parts, and it arrived today, but it's not correct so will have to see what I can do. The original design is so simple I may just be able to fabricate a new handle on my own without too much difficulty. I don't see any easy way to modify/improvise with the new one based on the direction of the mechanism's pull.
And a new GRM shirt arrived in the mail. Can never have too many of these!
For flex fuel lines on Mitsubishis I've had good luck with the hard line AN adapters and then making a short section "whip" of AN line. If you want to get really fancy get some new stainless hard line and bend it to match the factory line and replace all your line!
Otherwise you're stuck with the factory stuff.
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