Build thread later, keep it debate now

[RocKrawler]

So I picked up a 95SR and just as I'm starting to love it and put my excursion up for sale it gives me grief. I really like the size of the truck for off road use compared to the scourge, but by the time I outfit it with tires and gear I expect the mileage might be more similar than I hoped it would be. Add to it the almost dead sunroof (kinda barely moves), heater that blows lukewarm at best, and now some kind of metallic clattering from the lower front of the motor that threw the alternator belt (still runs smooth so it didn't skip timing). Is this going to become a maintenance nightmare? Should I cut bait and keep the Ford death star? Need motivation to keep going or give someone here a great deal on it. Help me decide.

 

[RocKrawler]

View attachment 215259

Or

View attachment 215262

 

[nwoods]

Just get another Monty. They cost less than just the tires on the scourge!

 

[RocKrawler]

Paid $1800 on this one and is runs great aside from the new noise that I need to diagnose this weekend. Scourge has new shoes already and just put 32"mud terrains on the monty

 

[Toasty]

Monty is cheap to fix and even with the 32's you should be getting about 18 in town and better on the highway. That V10 is a great motor but the motor and the truck will never take you the places that the Monty will.

 

[eurosonic]

Keep the monty. Most owners here experience sun roof problems. The motor wasn't designed to handle that big of a roof plus its old. Most don't use them. Im planning on deleting my sunroof completely.

As far as MPG, im getting 14-15 MPG with a bunch of armor, full size safari rack and all the gear loaded. Heating problem can be addressed.

How many miles on the montero?

 

[RocKrawler]

Around 150k. Recent rebuilt head, coils, cat, etc with receipts for 5k+ over the past several years on maintenance and repairs. No accidents and it's expo white. Been pretty impressed with it so far but it leaving us stranded with the motor issue a couple weeks back just had me worried. Have to get into it this weekend and see if it's the crank pulley bolt issue or something else. All the skid plates block view and access. This engine just seems to have a lot of bugs from what I've been reading over the last few weeks with the crank bolt issue, butterfly valve, timing belt and ignition system access difficulty.

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[RocKrawler]

If I do keep it I scored a rare set of staun tx1 rims I plan to use with bigger tires

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[off-roader]

There is a possible fix for the sunroof. Search on 4x4wire's Mitsu tech forum or their mitsu tech archive form.

What happens is dirt and other debris gets into the sunroof track which makes the motor have to work extra hard. Eventually the motor stops working. The fix is to clean the tracks and lube everything up. Does require removing the headliner to access everything properly.

Heater problem could be a bad engine thermostat stuck open, or a partially clogged heater core. Try doing a full coolant flush. When I first got my rig, I did the flush and literally ran water through the engine while it was running for 5-10 minutes before it finally came out clean! There should be a coolant drain plug at the bottom of the radiator on the passenger side IIRC.

Not sure about the engine issue. Maybe also ask on 4x4wire's Mitsu Tech forum, if you don't get the right answers here.

HTH.

 

[RocKrawler]

Thanks Off Roader, I value your knowledge as I see your experience all over the 4x4wire forums. Besides the stuff above is the "other" issues, like an oil pressure gauge that goes down with engine rpm, and up when idling, a fuel gauge that doesn't work at all, and some other non crucial stuff that probably only bugs me, as I like everything to work properly on my vehicles - why have a button if it doesn't do something, right?

 

[off-roader]

I really appreciate your compliment but I'm far from anything that noteworthy LOL. I'm what you'd call a modern renaissance man. Know a little about a lot of things but don't know a lot about any one thing. Plus I hate minutia which makes it impossible for me to become an expert. What I can recall today is <1% of what I've read and of that 1% i'm only 50% accurate LOL. There are others on 4x4wire and here who know 100x what I know.

I guess I've just been into Mitsu's for a long, long time and learned a lot by reading on here, 4x4wire, and even the old vmag forums where i think this all started.

So for these other issues... my "guesses" are as follows...
Since the oil gauge needle moves, the gauge is probably ok and it's somehow wired backwards. Check the sender and wiring.
Fuel gauge issue may also be wiring or a bad sender. Unlikely a bad gauge as i've rarely heard of them failing. The sender is probably at the tank. confirm its locale by downloading and checking in the FSM. Can download it from mitsubishilinks.com. There's an access panel in the bed. Lift the carpet/padding and you should see it.

Anything else?:ylsmoke:

 

[RocKrawler]

Bought a hard copy of the FSM, easier to use in the garage! Great to know about the access panel, was wondering if they thought that far ahead - if not I was going to install a marine bulkhead access to make my own.
Will I have any issues with 10" wide rims and 35's with a 2" BL? How much are the 3.15 Crawler gears, and where to get them?

 

[off-roader]

Bought a hard copy of the FSM, easier to use in the garage! Great to know about the access panel, was wondering if they thought that far ahead - if not I was going to install a marine bulkhead access to make my own.
Will I have any issues with 10" wide rims and 35's with a 2" BL? How much are the 3.15 Crawler gears, and where to get them?

Me too. Hard copy is a lot easier to search for stuff... Except I now have an ocr'd version of my 96 FSM so I can do text searches to find stuff.

I also printed the pdf manual as a garage or 4x4 trip copy. This way my original copy can stay clean on my shelf rather than get screwed up with grease stains.

 

[Jay Ayala]

I can tell you that over the years I lost count of how many times I've printed these manuals. It seems like I do that every time I have major work to perform on the raider.

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[nwoods]

I have an OCR'd version of the FSM's for my 1998 Monty. Makes finding anything 1000% easier. Still can't figure out what to do once I find it, but the info is there, cryptic as it may be

Here is a link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gnuwhxieuziaf93/SgTK5a6zV-