Pitchblack Rally Recce Raider Build

[irish44j]

This morning I got my hands on some fuel tank sealant epoxy stuff and got it all kneaded and mixed and applied it to the little pinhole leaks (well realy, the whole freaking area). Anyhow, seems to have stopped the leaks since I didn't smell any gas during/after subsequent drives, including some on very windy roads.

Also decided to lift the front back up a little bit and level things out better. So I went about halfway between where I was before and where I was when it was on the droop-stops, and also trimmed the lower stops about 1/2 (i.e. cut off 1/2" with a wood saw). So, that seems about right.
And still didn't think the front of the seat was up high enough, so instead of further spacing the base I drilled two new holes for the front "L" shaped mount bracket, after determining there was still space for a second backing nut above the OEM location (there is, and it's so perfect in size it actually holds itself in place).

So, now that's about where it feels right. Still not perfect, but good enough for the time being.

What else...

Oh, just for the hell of it took a scrap of HDPE sheet (which we use for underbody protection on the rally car) and made a mud/rock/splash guard for the front driveshaft. Not that it really needs it (though supposedly there is a stock guard that goes there), but could be helpful for keeping crap from getting up into the front u-joint and genearlly keeping things a bit cleanier under there. It was just an impulse project, really. Note that it's not a skidplate per se, more of a heavy "splash guard" of sorts, since it can flex in the middle pretty easily.

A few other small items, and decided to do a longer break-in drive (so far had 15 miles on it since the rebuild, added another 35 tonight). This time with a bit more confidence in things being "mostly right" I did my "test course" that I usually use for the rally car and the Porsche, and other sporty cars because it's hilly, turny, and just generally fun to do in a great-handling car. So yeah....it's still pretty fun to do in the Raider, but really have to make sure I don't come into turns too hot (the Porsche can do this course hardly ever touching the brakes, with the great handling and pretty wide tires...). Anyhow, no surprises and once you get a feel for the slower steering and brake response, the Raider actually takes the curvy roads decent.

Also did about 5 miles of 60mph runs and everything felt fine other than the constant reminder that you're in a giant square box with a near-vertical windshield lol. This guy pulled out a road up from me and I made an attempt to catch up to check it out. Yeah...."catching up" to things isn't really the Raider's strongest quality lol......

Also confirmed the cruise control isn't working for some reason (first time I've tested it). It's hooked up, the light on the stalk comes on, but nothing happens when I press the set button. Oh well, not that I planned to use it anyhow, maybe I'll look into it at some point in time.
After I got home, noticed a couple drips on the driveway:

1. from the front diff drain plug. So, grabbed my 24mm and tightened it up.

2. still the very small amount of coolant, which again traces back to the two heater pipe connection hoses. Not sure what I'm going to do about this issue - the pipes are probably just too mangled to ever have a perfect seal. In any case, it seems to be a very small drip (not spraying, just occasional drip straight down onto the bellhousing) so I may just live with it and check the coolant every so often. On a related note, throughout the driving the temp gauge never got above the 1/4 mark - which is from what I read, the correct place for it to reside. Apparently if it's showing halfway up, that's actually on the way to overheating. So, cooling system seems to be working well.

 

[Salonika]

That’s the only way to learn something! Try....fail.....try again until you get it right.

Today I attempted to tint the rear windows. I mean, they're big square, mostly flat windows, shoud be pretty easy.

Guess how many windows currently have tint on them?

None.

Guess how much of my tint roll is gone?

About half of it.

This is not my first attempt at tinting windows. The Sequoia ones came out reasonably fine. I'm really good at applying vinyl as well. Window tint I just can't do well for some reason. But in general I refuse to have someone else do work on my project cars for pretty much any reason (the GTI is my DD, and I had a pro tint it since I am in it every day and wanted it to be perfect). So, will give it another go once my annoyance goes down in a few days lol...

 

[irish44j]

Well, successfully tinted about half the windows on the truck (only had to re-do one of them). A few small imperfections, but overall they look pretty decent and luckily are pretty much hidden by the spare tire anyhow.

 

[irish44j]

So after more frustration and much use of my patience, I more or less got the hang of the tint, and finished the whole truck. The little wing windows were a bit sketchy to do, but they turned out fine. all in all, I used about twice as much film as I should have needed, since I re-did at least 4 windows (one twice). Overall, if this quality job was done on my daily driver GTI I'd be annoyed constantly at the little imperfections (I had a pro do that car), but for a vehicle like this, I'd say this being a 90% job is sufficient, and most of the small mistake areas aren't easily visible (like a crease behind the spare tire). Anyhow, overall happy with the effort for $30 in material and my own time vs. paying someone $250 to do it.

 

[irish44j]

Finally got to take the truck on a shakedown/distance/engine break-in drive today, hauling about 300 miles round trip to my parents' place out on the bay. Most of the trip is rural highways with speeds around 55-60 but I did take about a 30-mile leg down I-95 on the way down, where typical traffic is moving about 80mph on a Saturday morning. I mostly stuck to the right lane around 65 just to make sure everything was working fine, no wheels flew off (they didn't), etc. Once off there I got to the rural highways I know well. Usually I do this trip in the Porsche and look forward to catching slower traffic and making passes in the short passing zones. In the Raider wasn't so sure it had the "get-up" to really do that lol.....but I hardly saw any other cars in the 2 hours heading out into the country and never got the chance lol. Nothing notable happened, just cruising getting a feel for the SWB's unfamiliar road motions. Temps, oil pressure, etc all stayed fine. Engine sounded good and smooth, and on a 75-degree day had all the windows open.....I'm so used to wind buffeting and not much airflow in the Porsche and BMW, it was nice that the Raider's big windows reall let the air flow around inside and keep your legs cool and everything.

Once at the marina I visited with the parents and had lunch and hung out a bit. A customer who had just put his boat in foudn out he had a dead battery and a dead jumper pack, so I happened to have my jumper cables in the gearbox and drove down to the water to give him a jumpstart Cables were barely long enough - I was about to climb the travel-lift curb and see how the inclinometer worked, but didn't end up needing to

Also one of the ladies who does boat upholstery showed up in this, which was pretty cool

After a while headed home and hit a couple massive downpours. Happy to say the wipers work and it's great having window roof gutters and vent windows, meaning I could still get air in and not get wet (A/C isn't charged yet).

On the way back I skipped I-95 and took US-1, which is slower with more traffic and lights but more interesting. Again, everything went fine, and I was amused to get three "Jeep Waves" from Wranglers going by in the other direction. Guess they aren't too familiar with what older Jeeps look like vs. old Mitsubishis lol.
So, a few small items of note:

- Passenger mirror rattles at speeds over 45. can't hear it with the window up but with it down it was pretty annoying, so sill have to see how I can tighten that up (it's the glass section rattling against the housing, not the arm).

- Clutch pedal is squeaky AF. I shot the bushings with some silicone spray last week and it was quiet, but I guess I need to take the pedal out of the bushings and greas them with some real grease that will actually stay there.

- So at speeds over around 60 mph, everything feels fine when on the throttle, but when coasting in gear or on very light throttle there is a very fast-paced rumble/vibration from the rear end. It's fast enough that I don't think it's wheel-related and matches the vibration I can feel if I touch the TC shifter (or less-so the actual shifter) in terms of how fast it is (like, really fast). My suspicion is that one of my U-joint replacements is a bit "unbalanced" in pressure. As you may recall when I installed them one of them was pushed a bit too far in (just a tad) and I thought it was a little tight but figured it would "work itself out." So I suspect that's the culprit. I may just drop the rear DS and feel the joint - I think under decel it's just not giving even play to all sides of the joint (under acceleration i think the torque forces are enough to keep it "straight"). So, it's either that or something in the diff, but my impression is the former (hopefully).

Oh, in other news get got a new puppy. And he matches the Raider well - not that that was a requirement lol

 

[irish44j]

Decided to slide under the truck in the driveway a few minutes ago (because I happened to be outside, and I'm compulsive like that) and dont' see anything suggesting the U-joints are out of position. That said, what I did notice was the grease remnant on the zerk fitting of the front U-joint of the rear driveshaft. Yep, just like it's supposed to be., since I pumped grease into it after installing the DS.

But what I also noticed was that the rear U-joint zerk was perfectly clean, with no greae. And that's because I ran out of grease while doing the front one, and didn't have more on-hand, and so i ended up forgetting to add grease to the rear U-joint. Now, it had "factory" grease in it (i.e whatever Moog packed it with), but generally that's not sufficient in my experience. So perhaps the low amount of grease there has something to do with the vibration. Anyhow, I pumped a bunch of grease into it (it actually took quite a bit which makes me think it didn't have nearly enough), so will test tomorrow to see if that takes care of the issue. Fingers crossed. If not, then I'll pull the DS and see what the joints feel like.

 

[PacS14]

See if the fix on land cruiser mirror shake fixes yours mirror issue. It fixed mine on my gen 2.5 Land cruiser mirror fix click on this YouTube video and hopefully it works on the Raider. Good luck and great progress as always.

 

[irish44j]

I checked, and the Raider mirrors don't come apart like that. Then I got distracted rebuilding the Porsche's PS pump and forgot to look at the mirrors further.

I did however put some LSD friction modifier into the rear diff, which seems to have almost eliminated the "chunky" feeling when leaving a stop while turning, which was likely the LSD not slipping enough.

Also made a quick run (it's hard to hit 65mph anyplace near my house in a truck that takes so long to get there) down the local parkway and the vibration seems substantially reduced with the rear U-joint now greased. So, we'll see next time I'm on a highway for some distance. I could only hold that speed for a couple seconds due to stoplights.

 

[MarkGramlich]

Also did about 5 miles of 60mph runs and everything felt fine other than the constant reminder that you're in a giant square box with a near-vertical windshield lol.

If you are familiar with "Body by Fisher" on GM vehicles, the Gen 1 Montero should have "Body by Frigidaire". lol.

 

[irish44j]

If you are familiar with "Body by Fisher" on GM vehicles, the Gen 1 Montero should have "Body by Frigidaire". lol.

lol for sure. Which is a big departure from the Porsche 924, which when built had one of the lowest drag coefficients of any car ever. You coast in that car and the only thing that slows it down is road rolling resistance, not the wind

 

[irish44j]

Headed over to Md. this morning since a local pick and pull had a $75 wheelbarrow sale (whatever one person can wheel out in a wheelbarrow, basically). I only had a short list but figured I'd just fill a box with good German hose clamps and various other things and see if I could make it worth my while. Plus, weather was great and it was excuse to get out of the house to someplace where distancing is easy.

In the end, came away with a bunch of stuff for the rally car's M50 engine (full set of coils, among other thing) - mostly just stuff for spares, since the rally car needs pretty much nothing right now. There was a Porsche 924S in the yard so pulled a few small things off of it as well as a cargo cover (which is probably worth some money, since I already have one) and door seals in good shape. Also pulled some mint Jeep Cherokee taillights (to sell), some parts of an old Izusu Trooper (to sell), and filled a big Ford van hubcap (the old-school ones that look like a giant dog water bowl) with hose clamps and other stuff like that off the BMWs in the yard, plus fuses, a couple fuse boxes, a bunch of relays, etc. Another of our rallycross guys was there and somehow put a Hyundai V6 longblock in the wheelbarrow and wheeled it out. Oh, also found a nice scissor jack for othre uses.

For the Raider, found a few things that made it worth the trip, even if they seem small.

1. You may recall my WRX seats had a broken adjuster handle. These are like $50 new and fairly hard to find since most cars that had them were sold with power seats - so I've been scouring yards for one for a while, and finally found one. No big deal since I don't actually use this height adjustment anyhow (it's a max low), but still nice to have a non-broken handle.

2. A rear wiper arm. I got this off a Montero Sport, which is apparently the exact right size, just needs to be bent a bit to clear the spare tire. So now I have a functional rear wiper (sprayer works too).

That's mildly annoying since I ordered a new OEM one from Korea 2 days ago after not finding one for the last month. So I may just sell the new one once it gets here.

3. This little clip to hold the hood prop. i broke mine a while back and though I don't really need it, it's absence was a tiny annoyance that is now resolved lol (also from a Montero Sport).

Things I didn't find: Sun visors that would fit a Gen1. Cargo nets (man, every car in the yard was cleaned out of thse things - I usually find a couple still new in the bags buried in car trunks...). And any other parts that seemed like they'd be good for the Raider.

So put that stuff on when I got home, and also repainted the outside part of the rear window latches, which were just faded gray plastic. I was just gonna do them black, but what the hell.....still have tons of the Bronze paint lol.

 

[irish44j]

RockAuto delivered a new A/C compressor today. This truck already had a r134a conversion and working A/C before it blew the engine, so the rest of the system "presumably" was already set up for r134a. I ordered a new drier as well, but it was the wrong size diameter and didn't want to mess with the clamps, so just left the one there that was already there. I got the new compressor because the comperssor on this truck sat outside while the engine was out and looked terrible. I kept the one from the Blue Raider, but that hadn't been converted from R12 so didn't want to mess with it.

So the new compressor got here......aand had the wrong pulley arrangement. Crap.

The best option of course would probably be to just return it and get the right one, but that seems like a pain in the ass and it's almost July, so I'd like A/C now. So I took it apart and using the pulley from the old one and the clutch disc from the new one, made it work. A bit worried since the bearing on the pulley sounded a bit worn, but didn't feel terrible so should be ok for a while (I'll order a new bearing for it). I also have a new tensioner pulley on the way, but the old one is good enough for now. So, got it all installed (sorry, no pics of the changes, i forgot).

Then pulled a vacuum on the system for a while

And charged it up. Took the full 22oz. of r134a, of course

So, on a 90-degree day with the car in the sun and pulling air from fresh (not recirc), I recorded this temperature idling in the driveway, which seems about right even if it's a bit high according to the cheapo gauge.

I drove around with the windows up and it felt really nice inside, regardless of what the thermometer said. Not as cold as the Porsche's conversion (that car is frigid even on hot days), but probably as good as my 2018 GTI.....

Took a photo of it next to the big rig....the size difference is amusing.

Oh, also finally got around to making a battery tie-down, which I keep forgetting to do. Just a piece of steel bar and some J-hooks. Very exciting.

So when I went to the store today, for the second or third time in the last week the truck wouldn't start immediately when i got back in. Ignition turn, just a click of the relay or solenoid (as if the battery was dead). But the battery is fully charged. On each occasion it eventually started up just fine, but still not sure whether it was ignition-related, or whether the starter was jammed, so I'll have to investigate. I'll probably replace the ignition switch to eliminate that from the equation, and then look into the starter/solenoid if that doesn't solve the problem.

Also, still haven't fixed the TPS - I bought a new one, but it doesn't work at all (nor does the replacement one RockAuto sent me). The truck drives fine with the old one in it, which throws a check engine light, but otherwise *seems* to be working just fine and registers fine doing diagnostics with the multimeter. So could be an electrical issue someplace else. I'll get a new (different) TPS and try that, but overall doesn't seem to affect drivability so not too urgent.

 

[MarkGramlich]

I've heard of similar no-start conditions with the Gen 1's. Mitsubishi has a number of connections between the ignition and the starter. Some no-start conditions have been fixed by taking apart each connection between the ignition and starter. Check each connection for any corrosion. Apply some contact cleaner or corrosion inhibitor. Other folks have run a new wire from the ignition switch.

 

[irish44j]

yep, that's definitely on the to-do list for tomorrow. After the intermittent stalling issue with the spark igniter plug being the culprit, I need to more methodically check out all the connectors in this vehicle, which I kind of bypassed so far.

 

[irish44j]

So I think the occasional no-start I traced back to the ground bolt right next to the fusible link box, which was not tightened (likely I forgot after I added a couple new grounds for accessories last month). It was hand tight so probably getting occasional-but-not-always contact. Tightened it up and after about 4-5 short driving trips (including stops and restarts), no sign of the issue any longer. So hopefully that took care of things.

Also, got my actual license plates today, which makes me happy. Driving around with paper plates makes me feel like I just bought this thing as-is and didn't actually do the work myself (or maybe because it makes it appear that way to other people on the road, as if they care). Anyhow, happy to have the real ones now: