1979 L200 (Plymouth Arrow Sport truck)

[Toasty]

A while back I went to Colorado and picked up this sweet first Gen Mitsubishi pickup, it predates MMC's official 4WD pickup but was in fact sold new option upgraded to 4WD by Four Wheel Drive Engineering in Utah.


This rig has been sitting on my friend's property for 15-20 years and it was sitting on someone else's before that so, it needed some going through.

 

[MummifiedCircuitry]

Hard to see on my phone, but it looks like solid axle, passenger drop in the first picture? Do you know if the shop in Utah use an off the shelf axle in it or something custom?

 

[Toasty]

Hard to see on my phone, but it looks like solid axle, passenger drop in the first picture? Do you know if the shop in Utah use an off the shelf axle in it or something custom?

I was going to get to that, It's actually very interesting what they did. This sort of modification was very common in the 70's for import pick-ups. Most of the Nissan and Toyotas got a modified Jeep front axle and some even got really old closed knuckle axles. There were a lot of companies offering kits or conversions back then but a few were super legit, like the Toyota Wolverine & Lowe 620.
This particular truck was done with a bunch of parts made specifically for the conversion by Spicer, they built a Dana 30 with application specific 3.90 ring and pinion, flat top knuckles and it uses the stock Mitsubishi brakes. For the transfer case they made a variant of the Dana 20 called the T100a, I can't find a lot of information on it but it seems aside from the cast iron "reverse Texas" divorce adapter it seems like a normal Dana 20. It's really neat that they put so much effort into these conversions, It's hard to imagine a company like Spicer tooling up to make a bunch of weird stuff for a Mitsubishi.
The suspension was done by Rancho, unfortunately all of those parts are now broken or missing and no longer available so I'm going to have to custom make some stuff there. Other than those Rancho parts everything else still seems available (service parts) it shouldn't ever need new knuckles or R&P but it's a safe bet those are no longer available. The knuckles look like little baby Chevy flat tops



Here's the crossmember they made to carry the transfer case.

 

[Toasty]

"ran when parked"

When I got it home I put a wrench on the crank to find the engine locked solid, I pulled the engine to do a rebuild and the findings were not great. The engine was badly sludged, had coolant in two cylinders and the mains were scored. The coolant was being fed in via the intake manifold, the original owner installed a later model cylinder head at some point and rather than sourcing the correct intake manifold for the update he just reinstalled it and when the bottom row of bolts didn't align he ran a steel strap across to clamp it down. it wasn't good enough to keep the coolant from flowing.

 

[Toasty]

With the original engine being in need of a lot of machine work I ended up finding a better donor engine from a Montero and went through that instead.





I stripped the donor engine down to a short block before reassembling it with new parts. Seemed freshly rebuilt, I went ahead and replaced everything anyway because the last guy had hardware mixed up and a couple things I didn't like.



I ended up using the less cool valve cover from the Montero and installed a new 38/38 carb, everything from the old engine was just bad. SO it won't look as cool as it did originally but it'll be better than using what it came with. Here's what the old engine looked like on the outside.

 

[MummifiedCircuitry]

That's pretty wild, looks like a hefty crossmember for a little truck. Is that T100a t-case similar to the T100 divorced unit from a Datsun 720?

 

[Toasty]

That's pretty wild, looks like a hefty crossmember for a little truck. Is that T100a t-case similar to the T100 divorced unit from a Datsun 720?

Yes, I haven't talked to anyone at Spicer about it but from what I've gathered this was the case configuration for most all of the mini truck conversions of the era.

 

[Toasty]

I got some sort of appropriate tires for the original 14's, truck tires for 14's are not super common anymore but 30x10 UTV tires are!

 

[Todd780]

Looks like a cool and unique truck. Glad you're saving it! Is yours a Mitsu or Plymouth?

 

[Toasty]

Looks like a cool and unique truck. Glad you're saving it! Is yours a Mitsu or Plymouth?

This one was sold by Plymouth

 

[Cruisn]

Ohhh very nice!

 

[ThundahBeagle]

Love the black and stripes, and the stance

 

[Aetro]

I got some sort of appropriate tires for the original 14's, truck tires for 14's are not super common anymore but 30x10 UTV tires are!
View attachment 818482
View attachment 818483

I think the UTV market will save the 14 and 15in tire market for these older 4x4s.

I was struggling to find 35s for 15s for a bit, but options seem to be opening up again

 

[ITTOG]

ATV tires on concrete will not last long. I wonder if they will even make 5,000 miles.

 

[Toasty]

ATV tires on concrete will not last long. I wonder if they will even make 5,000 miles.

These are DOT rated UTV radials but I agree, they will not last to the next oil change on pavement. There are some more street friendly radials that can be had in these sizes, I'm not registering this machine or really driving it on the road. My plan is to bridge the gap between overlanding and UTV with this, the kind of utility that would be great for an elk hunt.

So, I drove it for the first time in decades! Surprisingly it drives straight and handles well, especially considering all of the suspension and steering needs some attention. The gnarly Maxxis tires weren't as loud or unruly as I expected. Shifts good and pulls strong!