My 1992 Chevrolet/Isuzu Trooper Build in Chile S.A.

[EricMcGrew]

Ok guys. So, sorry it's been so long between post. I wish I could say that I will be more consistant, but all I can honestly say, is that I will try and be more consistant.

Tin, Thanks for all the info, and for offering about the steering box. Honestly, I have fixed the slack/play, in the box. It's a fairly long story, and will dig it out of one of my other forum post to explain it to you guys here as soon as I can.

Also, as I'm new to "Truely" tuning Diesels, all of what you have explained is very beneficial. My only problem now, is to go back and redo (if I can remember the original settings), and start anew.

Kperras, One thing you need to know is that, from what I understand, there are actually two different kinds of MUA-5 tranny's. Each has a different bell housing. My friend here in Chile (the guy with the DIY projector headlights) bought his Trooper with the 3.2 v6 and factory 5 speed tranny. To get his motor swap to mount to the Bellhousing, he had to make an adapter plate out of .25" sheet steel, and shave some bolt heads down to not rub the flywheel. So, be aware of that. I think I mentioned briefly before, that my Trooper came with the 4jb1-t motor already "installed" (if you can call what they did, an install), and the previous owner bought the Engine tranny combo out of a recked vehicle. So, my combo mounts directly together w/o an adapter plate. Honestly, as I didn't have this problem to worry about, I don't know what really makes the difference between the 2 different tranny Bellhousings (what year models and so on). I'll try and get some info from my friend, who I know is more up to date on that. If I've miss stated something, I will let you know. It won't be the first time I've made an idiot of myself. Even though I try and avoid it.

 

[EricMcGrew]

As for the photos above, the photo that says "attachment", is the the photo that should be below the sentence that says "slightly modified". The only other photo you're missing is the one that shows my Daihatsu as it sits now. So, here you go.

 

[EricMcGrew]

So, of course the next step on any Trooper/4x4 build/mod is to put some decent tires on the rig. My friend got me a deal (for Chile anyways) on some Cooper ST MAXX 265/75/16's that I had slapped on to the ugly factory alloys. I stuck with the alloys because of the light weight, and cost involved to find other wheels. Unfortunately, I had a rubbing problem in two places. One was on the front fender well mud flap, and the other was on the sway bar/chassis. So, for a short while, I just ran my trooper, being careful not to turn to sharply.

When I got the Trooper, it looked like this

Then after the tires being installed, it looked like this

 

[Patrollife]

It's amazing what difference a more aggressive tire will do to your rig. I haven't seen the ST Maxx on any of the rigs here in Guatemala. They look great on the Trooper and the tread pattern sort of reminds me of the Goodyear Duratracs. Any road noise with the Coopers? How are you liking them?

 

[EricMcGrew]

It's amazing what difference a more aggressive tire will do to your rig. I haven't seen the ST Maxx on any of the rigs here in Guatemala. They look great on the Trooper and the tread pattern sort of reminds me of the Goodyear Duratracs. Any road noise with the Coopers? How are you liking them?

Yeah, the tire really turned the rig around from looking kind of weak, into something fairly rugged. The reason you probably haven't seen these on many vehicles in Guatemala, is because they are the U.S. retail price for the importers. Which puts them fairly expensive for A/T tires. Mine (for 4 tires), cost me $1300 U.S. approx, and that was with have a contact with the direct importers. So, they were not cheap.

How I like them...

They are really good A/T tires. Here's my pros list:
- Good highway wear patterns
- Really puncture resistant side walls
- Decent mud traction
- Decent sand traction
- Good rock traction
- Seem to dispearse water on roads well
- Ok on gravel roads, but they seem to float more than my Buckshot M/T's did
- Lugs resist gravel chipping and chunking

Cons list:
- Super stiff side walls/ Not very playable. (E-load rating)
- No traction on wet grass
- Expensive
- Heavy
- Not great on gravel roads, but not horrible either

As my trooper isn't the lightest vehicle, and as I usually carry tools, a good jack and a full size spare, please the side steps (soon to be rock sliders), md rear bumper, and sometimes a safari style roof rack, the E-load rating doesn't effect my ride too much. Still, my Trooper doesn't make the tire deform like someone would need for rock crawling. So far, I'm happy with them. However, for where I live, I think I may look into a different tire for next time. I don't plan on changing these soon, but when I do, I'll do a bit of searching before jumping back on another set of these. I'll look into some BF's or maybe even go back to some M/T's. I really like the Cooper SST's, and my friends got some BF M/T's that have been great. I also loved my Maxxis Buckshots that I had on my Daihatsu for a while. So, I'll just see what happens for now. Still, the ST Maxx's are not bad tires.

 

[EricMcGrew]

Besides the tires, which where so bad, (that the technical inspection that has to be done every year in Chile), wouldn't pass them as safe, I had to replace still a few more things. One of which, I noticed the first time I got in the Trooper, where the shocks. Every shock on the Trooper, when I got it seemed a bit soft. Honestly though, I suspected more than just the shocks as the culprit. I also suspected the rear springs.

To check the rear springs, I took the rear shocks off, and stood in the back door way, and lightly jumped up and down. As I suspected, the springs compressed and the bumpstops hit the axle, fairly hard. So, Springs where now on the menu.

I really wanted the OME springs 929 modle for my Trooper. This of course means, that I would have to wait 8 weeks for them to be shipped in. A lot of shops here in Chile sell parts like they have them in stock. Once you've paid for them, they tell you it'll be 2 weeks before they get here. At the end of 2 weeks, they tell you something has happened with the available inventory, and it will be another 4 to 6 weeks. I say this from experiences from various off-road stores, not just one.

In the meantime, I was looking for shocks. Of course no one had any good off-road shock available. I had to make a quick, and less than ideal purchase of shocks, when one day, out on a local road (more like an off road trail), the front left tire came completely off the ground. Thinking, "That was weird", I did some investigating at home. The shocks that they previous owner had put on the front of the Trooper where only 12" long of full extension. So, at factory ride height, there was only 1" of down travel. Realizing that this was neither safe (for the roads we travel here), nor were the shocks going to last, I had to by some more factory Tokico shocks at the right length for my needs immediately. I'm still running them for now, but plan on changing them in the future.

I finally got my springs installed, and the trooper was drastically changed. For the better of course. Both, in ride quality, and apperance.

 

[EricMcGrew]

So, I'm skipping ahead of the progress on the project, but today I took the Trooper out with my wife. While out, I took a few photos. Here are a few. If you notice that the trooper has a few mods not covered yet, it's because this post is really going over what I've already done to the Trooper. As I add new stuff, I let you guys know about it.

I also found these trails. So, now I'm in search of the owners of the property to find out if they'll let me use their logging trails.

 

[Patrollife]

Eric, I'm liking that rear bumper. And beautiful drive. How far is that from your house? And thanks for the feedback on the tires. Are you keeping the rear tire mount off? Keep the pics coming!

 

[EricMcGrew]

Rear Bumper: Wow... now... your getting ahead of the story. LOL! I'll cover that soon.

Spare tire: Related directly to the rear bumper. Coming soon.

Tires: No problem! I'm gonna do a review of all my tires pretty soon I think. Put them on my website in video form.

The Drive/Location: It's around 45 min from my house or so. Not to far.

This is pretty close to where I've done some other videos. For instance, the area shown above, is only 10-15 min from Ralun/Rollizo. Here's a vid of Ralun and Rollizo.

 

[EricMcGrew]

Then on the list was to improve the tire scrub sitch. So, I bought me some 2" 6 lug spacers. These are the good and reliable spacers. I mean the kind that have 6 lug holes, plus 6 lug bolts pressed in upon purchase. So, my hub lugs are not the same that hold the spacer and wheel on. One set holds the spacer, and the lugs pressed in the aluminum spacers hold the wheels on. THey are solid, and also are very well balanced. Well worth the $200 shipped to Chile.

Since i had to wait on the the spacers to get to Chile, I decided to take care of another pet peave of mine... Automatic 4x4 hubs had to go. So, I bought some Toyota Aisin manual hubs. Both of the factory auto hubs where already having problems connecting, and needed a rebuild. Not to mention that the fact that auto hubs are absolutely useless if you get stuck in mud, hole, rock, or other tight spot. It's due to the whole reversing, then driving forward to get them engaged. Then of course, I had to install them.



Not only did the tire scrub issue go away, but my suspension rides better with the leverage points of the IFS (wheels) being extended further out. My trooper also got more stable while being on at it's new ride height.

 

[EricMcGrew]

Something that I really needed to fix, was my front swaybar links. They where shot, and didn't give much support to the suspension, and I got thru technical revision with a warning. In fact, the guy should have failed me, but he saw that I had tried to fix the problem, and since it was the only problem left, he let me thru. In any case, we went back to the states to visit our families, and I picked up a few parts while there.

I picked up a moog swaybar link, a new poly tranny mount (still not installed), poly bump stops front and rear (not all installed), a set of front poly swaybar bushings, and a thrush turbo muffler.

Here's the poly bushing installed for the front swaybar


Here's the Moog swaybar link vs the original


Here's the Moog link installed


I also installed the Thrush Turbo muffler

 

[Patrollife]

Rear Bumper: Wow... now... your getting ahead of the story. LOL! I'll cover that soon.

Spare tire: Related directly to the rear bumper. Coming soon.

Tires: No problem! I'm gonna do a review of all my tires pretty soon I think. Put them on my website in video form.

The Drive/Location: It's around 45 min from my house or so. Not to far.

This is pretty close to where I've done some other videos. For instance, the area shown above, is only 10-15 min from Ralun/Rollizo. Here's a vid of Ralun and Rollizo.

Firstly, great video, thank you for not just strapping a gopro to the front so we can watch a bunch of dirt drive by. And looks like a pretty sweet area to visit 45 mins from the house. The Trooper is looking good man! I like the stance of her in your latest post and now that my muffler was ripped off I'm thinking I may need something similar to yours for more ground clearance. Keep the post coming!

 

[EricMcGrew]

Thanks man! Funny thing is, I just asked about your plans for your next exhaust. LOL!

One thing that I did forget to mention... Just so you all understand, my muffler choice, wasn't so much based on sound, as on a decent build quality and uninterupted exhaust exit. Remember, that I'm running a 2.8 Turbo diesel. Chilean law says that I must, legally, have a muffler in the exhaust line system. In reality though, having, or not, the muffler doesn't really effect the sound of my exhaust to much. Since the exhaust comes thru the turbo, it's pretty quite on it's own.

Just an fyi, the Thrush brand line, has a few different options available. You can select mufflers by construction type. The price vary's slightly. You can buy all welded, or stamped seam mufflers for instance.

From what I've seen, they are decent mufflers, with a good build quality, decent performance, and a nice sound. This 2.5" inlet to 2.5" outlet "Turbo" muffler by Thrush, only cost me $30 U.S. approx, at O'Reily's. So, these may be something some of you may be interested in.

 

[EricMcGrew]

Once I got a number of the little things taken care of, I thought it was time to take it out and about a bit more. This was before me having a phone/camera that did hd vid. So, all I got from my trips were some photos. Here are a few to show you where I went.

Here's another rare photo of my Trooper actually being clean out and about.
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This is typical weather for us 9 months of the year here.
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I'll put up more on the build and trips out and about later!

 

[EricMcGrew]

Sorry guys, been working on my Off-Road Independence podcast. Got a little behind and just got the episode out today for this weeks. If you're interested, here's where you can check them out. www.offroadindependence.com.

While this vid, doesn't flow in the time line with the mods that I've been posting, I thought I'd feel the day for you guys with the following video.


Hope you all enjoy it!