Mapper's gen 2.5

SoCalMonty

Explorer
I love the XC70s...my V70 is my daily. :) I know what you mean about too many cars. Right now I'm down to 2, but I had been used to having 3: a daily driver, a 4x4, and a track/fun car. Storage is a pain though, as are maintenance and mod budgets.

The first time I went out with the plan of sleeping in the truck with my (130lb) dog, I removed the passenger seat too...so the only seat in the truck was the driver's. My idea was that my dog would sleep where the passenger seat was, and I'd have the back. He ended up climbing in back and sleeping with me, and it wasn't that bad space wise.

If you're going on trips with 3 dogs plus a passenger, you'll probably be OK with the rear seats all removed.

But if you're planning on sleeping 1-2 people and 3 dogs inside, that would be a tight fit in a 10x10 bedroom - so I can't really think of any vehicle short of an RV that would be adequate for that! The Land Cruiser certainly wouldn't work...with the seats removed in the Montero, it has a good deal more room than the LC inside.
 

off-roader

Expedition Leader
I'll definitely have to remove all the seats and make a platform with gear storage underneath.
Kinda like this...
DSC_4576.gif

Size is nearly a full sheet of plywood but I can measure it later today if you need it.

Folds in half so the middle row seats can still be used. Alternatively you could remove both rows and just have a single massive platform in back with storage underneath. That's what Grasscat did in his.

How it's mounted... (using the stock loops in the cargo area).
image_zps814962ee.jpg
 

mapper

Explorer
Sweet!

Well haven't had much time wrenching on the car this week...an hour here, another there, and so on. Probably have about 3 hours in on it and I've almost got the upper intake plenum off. It isn't as hard as it looks, at first glance, but man there are a lot of little bolts, brackets and connections to keep track of. This isn't testing my wrenching skill at all, especially with the videos available on you tube, but is seriously testing my organisational skills (something I've always kind of struggled with).

In some ways I'm leaning toward paying a shop to redo my heads. The quote for reworking the heads with new valve guide seals and a new timing belt is $1800. Not terrible at all. Unfortunately, now that I'm seeing how everything is put together I'm getting nervous about having a mechanic rush through the job. There is a real piece of mind with knowing everything is done right...of course that assumes I can keep track of all the little pieces!!

What does the mitsu crowd think? should I pull the heads and take them in for reworking (still probably going to cost me a couple hundred $) or just trust the recommended mechanic to do the full job?
 

jeep-N-montero

Expedition Leader
Sweet!

Well haven't had much time wrenching on the car this week...an hour here, another there, and so on. Probably have about 3 hours in on it and I've almost got the upper intake plenum off. It isn't as hard as it looks, at first glance, but man there are a lot of little bolts, brackets and connections to keep track of. This isn't testing my wrenching skill at all, especially with the videos available on you tube, but is seriously testing my organisational skills (something I've always kind of struggled with).

In some ways I'm leaning toward paying a shop to redo my heads. The quote for reworking the heads with new valve guide seals and a new timing belt is $1800. Not terrible at all. Unfortunately, now that I'm seeing how everything is put together I'm getting nervous about having a mechanic rush through the job. There is a real piece of mind with knowing everything is done right...of course that assumes I can keep track of all the little pieces!!

What does the mitsu crowd think? should I pull the heads and take them in for reworking (still probably going to cost me a couple hundred $) or just trust the recommended mechanic to do the full job?

Do it yourself, just take a lot of pictures as you go and you should be fine, that's how I did the work on mine recently and it still runs nicely :Wow1:
 

mapper

Explorer
Where did you end up taking your heads and what, roughly, did they charge?


I should add the $1800 quote was for me to drive the truck in and drive it out with redone heads and new timing belt/water pump. NOT simply doing the heads if I take it to them off the truck. I'm guessing that would be about $3-400
 
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jeep-N-montero

Expedition Leader
Where did you end up taking your heads and what, roughly, did they charge?


I should add the $1800 quote was for me to drive the truck in and drive it out with redone heads and new timing belt/water pump. NOT simply doing the heads if I take it to them off the truck. I'm guessing that would be about $3-400

The heads on mine have never been touched and doesn't smoke at all.
 

SoCalMonty

Explorer
You could actually do the valve stem seals without removing the heads...but you would need a few tools (compressed air included). It would save you quite a bit of coin. I don't recall the mileage on your truck, but I wouldn't think the heads or valves would need anything under 200k short of maybe a blown head gasket.
 

mapper

Explorer
Mine has 178k on it. Smokes more than I want it to. I could drive it as is, sure, but I'd rather just have fresh valve guide seals. Needs a timing belt, plugs, crank bolt (to be safe) and valve cover gaskets anyway.

So after a work week of an hour here and there, I had the intake off by Friday evening in time for fondue party. Yesterday afternoon I had some time and I looked at what else needed to be done. Honestly, this engine is a total PITA to work on. The amount of brackets upon brackets with shared bolts through critical components etc. is just a little bit absurd. Manageable, sure, but when I started digging down to pull the valve covers every time I would get excited about making progress I ran into another buried component that made me groan.

I also don't have compressed air or any of the special valve guide seal tools so would likely be pulling heads to take them into a shop. I called up the shop that was recommended for the valve work. This time I actually talked to the guy who does the work and he seemed to know the engine very well and thought he might be able to do the guide seals without pulling heads. A big improvement over the guy I talked to last time who seemed pretty clueless. In any case he gave me a smaller estimate for the whole shebang, pull head, check valves, valve guides, resurface as needed, timing belt, water pump for about 1300-1500; cheaper if he can do it without pulling heads. I could do the work myself but he seemed to know the drill and taking heads in, amd buying all the gaskets, t-belt parts etc. is going to cost me half that quote in parts alone. I have 4 other cars that need less fiddly jobs done: brakes, control arms, that kind of straightforward stuff. I'd rather pay someone to deal with this job and spend my garage time on the less fiddly stuff.

So anyway, after removing the intake I pulled all the old plugs. 4 of 6 were coated in sticky oil goo from the leaking rubber grommets (or what is left of them) on the valve covers. Gaps were between 0.060 and 0.090!! They were either original or still there from the first scheduled maintenance. (previous owner told me they had recently been changed...yeah, sure). Incredibly it ran really well like this! At this point I decided to put it all back together and take it over to the valve guys shop this week. Got it buttoned back up in about 2 hours Saturday afternoon. Drove it around the neighborhood awhile to make sure everything was working proper...no problems at all. Finished up the eve watching some Olympic slope style.

Pulling the intake really isn't that bad. Pictures and some masking tape to label the bolts helps with this job for sure. I'd feel confident doing it in the field now and that's what I was really wanting to accomplish. Probably could do it fairly quickly after just one run through (1.5 hours, tops for removal). I learned what I needed to about the motor and really I wouldn't ever be digging further into it in the field anyway.

Brake parts are on the way and when she comes home with fresh valve guide seals that will be next on the agenda.

I appreciate the pushes to do the job myself and I think anyone with some basic mechanics skills, and some patience, can do it. At the moment I am just a little bit lacking in the patience department for this job.
 
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jeep-N-montero

Expedition Leader
I think I mentioned a few times in my plugs and wires thread that these are a PITA to work on, but so glad I did the work myself and only spent about $130 on parts.
 

jlocster

Explorer
Mapper, for those without compressed air there is the "rope trick" for changing valve seals. Basically you pull a plug and pack rope into the combustion chamber to keep the valves from falling in. The benefit being, of course, that you don't have to pull the heads. Haven't done it myself but I think it's documented on 4x4wire. Just another option...
 

mapper

Explorer
Yeah i researched the rope trick but given that it's difficult to get a spring compressor to work well in these heads and that there are 24 valves worth of fiddly work it all fell into the category of my lacking sufficient patience... and having too many other projects needing attention for my limited time.

Jeep-n. I'm glad I got it down to the replacing plugs stage. I wouldn't have been comfortable driving around in this if I wasn't familiar enough with the motor for that. I will have no problem with that job in the future. The last straw for me was a hidden, buried bolt connecting the egr pipe to the blasted big black stay that connected the intake to the bank 2 head. I had already decided I was going to pull heads to have the seals done... Which may have been my downfall... And I was not looking forward to the fuel rails, lower plenum and, most importantly, exhaust manifolds.

I also researched the t belt procedure extensively. That job, by itself, doesn't seem to be particularly difficult on this motor. If I own it another 60k I wouldn't be afraid of that either.
 

mapper

Explorer
I should add the most important excuse of all for not doing this job myself...It's ski season!! And we just got the biggest storm of the season here, finally all the good stuff getting filled in and a good avalanche cycle to clear out some of the monsters in the basement. Forecast looking good for next weekend too.

Sometimes you just gotta prioritize :sombrero:
 
I just did the valve cover gaskets, plugs, wires, timing belt, and water pump about 4 months ago on my gen 2.5. It was definately a pain and you should expect lots of hand crampage in those hard to reach areas. But it's definately worth saving the cash if you have the mechanical skills to just do it yourself like jeep-n-montero was saying. Although, I didn't do my valve stem seals while it was torn down, due to funds and this truck being my daily driver. So my beast still smokes....haha


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

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