My First Monty: Need Suggestions

[arb098]

Alright guys, I've been lurking for a while now. My lady and I have been casually looking for either a Land Cruiser or Gen 3 Montero for a while now, but we really hadn't found anything within our price range that was worth it. Well, her Subaru decided to self-detonate, so we took it as a sign and decided it was time to bite the bullet. Lucky for us, I came across an ad on Craigslist for an ’05 Montero without any pictures, and instead of passing it over like I normally would, I shot the owner a message. She turned out to be really nice single mother who had used the truck to transport her gaggle of little ones around. She gave me a full break down of every issue and sent me tons of pictures. So, we drove 2 hours to check it out and decided to bring her home (the Montero not the single mother)!

Managed to get this beautiful ’05 Montero with 161k for $2000. There are no mechanical issues that I’ve been able to find, but the body needs some love. Lots of little scratches and a hole in one of the body cladding pieces, which is why it was a little cheaper than most. Also, a bit of a plus, she literally had brand new rotors and brakes put on. We showed up to check it out as the mechanic was finishing up, and we had him go ahead and give it a once over.

Biggest issues to start:

• Antennae can’t “get it up” anymore
• Needs the fluids changed
• No documentation of a timing belt job
• A few small places of rust around the back hatch

Now, question time!
I’m gonna change all the fluids front-to-rear this weekend, but I’ve read that these things are really particular with what you use. So, what brands do you guys use for your oil/trans fluid/diff fluid/etc?

What are some of the first things I should look at servicing, other than what I’ve already mentioned?

 

[coffeegoat]

Welcome to the club!, that's a great deal!

I think you've probably got a good start on the maintenance, the biggest item on that list is the timing belt job, which depending on your approach can be quite extensive. The key issue is that getting to the timing belt/water pump is a big job, and once you're in there there is a laundry this of cheap and easy things to do to reduce the likelihood of needing to tear the entire engine apart again. There are lots of threads and youtube videos on actually doing the job, I tackled the gen 3, 3.5L engine myself without much previous experience and was able to muddle through it. Look around in some of the build threads for all the bits and bobs.

As far as the fluids, the only one to be really careful of is the transmission fluid. Spend the extra money and get Mitsu/Kia/Hyundai SP-III, Eneos is apparently also OK, anything else and you'll end up with problems, it's easily the best upgrade I've done to my rig and it only cost ~$100. When you do it, follow the instructions floating around to "flush" the system where you pump fresh fluid to displace the old stuff in the torque converter and cooler.

As far as the other fluids, use nice stuff - everyone has their own opinion of whats the best. I just did my differentials/transfer case a couple weekends ago and used Redline 75W-90 GL-5 in the differentials and Redline MT-90 GL-4 in the transfer case. They seem to work great.

 

[clmrt]

Rotella T6 for the oil.