"Yoshi" - 2005 Limited Build & Adventure Thread

[SONICMASD]

7/3/19: Another day, another PepBoys appointment. PepBoys in Flagstaff got the camber bolt parts needed from Mitsu and was finally able to complete the alignment. Unfortunately, they too couldn't get the TPMS sensors to work despite having a computer (ATEQ) that Continental says is compatible with reprogramming the VDO Redi Sensor in the Montero.

New camber bolt:




I've had the skids off for the past 3 months with all of this work being done, felt good to get the full ADD line put back on where they belong. PS - where'd my muffler go? haha





The good news is the Montero drives a lot better. It still has a very very slight pull to the right and some vibration/shimy in the steering wheel but since the alignment is now all in the green and the tires are supposedly balanced correctly the only things I can think of now are

A. Freshen up the front end components though none of them have any detectable play in them by hand despite having 170k on them.
B. Try moving the brand new tire that was the spare on my last Gen3 back into the spare position so that all tires are at exactly the same tread depth and see if that solves things.
C. Install the winch and bigger battery to bring the front springs down into spec as maybe the unloaded stiff front springs are affecting the way the front rides and handles.

Again, the vibration and pull are incredibly slight, waaaaaay less than what I had for years on my Gen2.5 or what I think a Gen2.5 could even ever be capable of with 33s and 170k on the original steering box even if it had all new bushings,arms, and joints. It's just that I know it can be perfect in a Gen3 so that's why I even think about/mention it.

7/7/19: Oh ya, I forgot to mention, the wheels and tires look rad! Heck, the whole truck looks awesome! Check out the comparison with how Yoshi looked immediately after finishing the lift on the old 31.5" Nittos on OEM wheels vs today with the 33" BFG KO2s on Toyota TRD Off Road wheels:

 

[Ocdfisher]

The wheel/tire combo looks great. I had to get my bfg tires road force balanced to get rid of 95% of the steering wheel shimmy. I drove it home 1000 miles after buying it on a bad balance job. From 62 to 70ish it shook pretty bad.
I have been looking at getting those same wheels for a while but was concerned about the extra width and offset. Do you think they would fit stock height with just under a 32" tire?

 

[offthepath]

Looks really good!!! Seems about par for the course at most repair places. I’ve resolved myself I will always need to fix something anytime i take a vehicle in. It’s a nice surprise when you don’t, ha.

 

[SONICMASD]

The wheel/tire combo looks great. I had to get my bfg tires road force balanced to get rid of 95% of the steering wheel shimmy. I drove it home 1000 miles after buying it on a bad balance job. From 62 to 70ish it shook pretty bad.
I have been looking at getting those same wheels for a while but was concerned about the extra width and offset. Do you think they would fit stock height with just under a 32" tire?

Oooooh ya, I forgot about "road force balance", I need to find a place that does that and have them check it out. Thanks for the reminder.

As for running 32s on these wheels on stock suspension, I don't know for certain but my educated guess is that yes, they would fit with no rubbing on asphalt. Maybe a little rubbing at full articulation and with impact/speed off road, but even then I'd guess that they wouldn't rub at all. The reason I am deducing this is because I tried putting the TRD 4runner Snowflake wheels with these new KO2 33s from my 2003 on Yoshi just to see how it would look a few months ago before the lift and they only rubbed when turning. So that was with 33s and with a heavily sagged front suspension from the ARB bull bar. The snowflake wheels are also +15 offset but are 17x7 instead of 17x7.5, but all the other specs are in favor of not rubbing.

 

[Toasty]

Looks great!

 

[ChrisCosta416]

Loving your build man, I noticed you mentioned the Gen3 cabin is really noisy, mine has been fairly quiet!!!

 

[SONICMASD]

Loving your build man, I noticed you mentioned the Gen3 cabin is really noisy, mine has been fairly quiet!!!

Now that I think of it, this 2005 doesn't seem as bad as my previous 2003. I'll take a decibel reading on the highway and post back up but I still plan on sound deadening the entire cabin.

 

[Toasty]

Loving your build man, I noticed you mentioned the Gen3 cabin is really noisy, mine has been fairly quiet!!!

He probably means in compared to a Gen 2 since he's owned both. Gen 2's are isolated from the suspension better than Gen 3's so road noise isn't as noticable (however wind noise is more noticeable in a Gen 2).

 

[SONICMASD]

Just measured today - 75mph - mid 80s to low 90s decibel reading = insanely loud for a brand's flagship vehicle in 2005 even with 33" tires. For reference, I found an auto decibel database and it claims that a 2008 Land Cruiser measured 66.5db at 75mph (on stock tires though, so add a bit for that).

So hypothetically if the Land Cruiser is at say 70 and Montero at 90 that's an ocean apart because decibels are not a linear scale. I think 20dbs difference is the same as saying perceived loudness went up 400%.

Now that things are calming down on the hard core mechanical part of the build, I'm going to move more into comforts and hope to strip out the interior and add sound deadening to the floor and sides and temperature insulation to the roof and trans tunnel.

 

[SONICMASD]

7/25/19: Roof work

About 1 year ago I was picking parts off a Gen3 at the junkyard and the roof rack caught my eye. It had Yakima crossbars on it - score. But even more interesting it had a sunroof wind visor that I never knew existed. The Yakima cross bars were locked so the only way to remove them was to drop the headliner and remove the factory roof rack and buy the whole thing - which I did. Then fast forward until last week when I found an old school Yakima Space Cadet roof top box from the 90s for sale locally. I scooped that up and decided it was finally time to get this long awaited project done.

Sunroof Visor - if you've ever used your sunroof then you know how loud and annoying it can be. Mitsu has that cool wind buffer thing that pops up so you don't have to crack a window to avoid the buffering air noise inside the car but it adds a lot of wooshing wind noise. That's why Mitsubishi created part number AMR01YKX05 - Sunroof Wind Deflector. This was sold as a Dealer Add-On back in the day and long since discontinued and super rare to find nowadays. There are no permanent alternations to the car, it attached with 2 clips held from the underside by metal brackets and a lot of double sided tape.

More info and pics here: https://mitsubishiforum.com/forum/m...sunroof-wind-deflector-amr01ykx05-pics-37992/

I cleaned the mounting surfaces well with alcohol and then applied 3M Super Strength double sided tape to the deflector then after already doing several test fits to determine the correct location/position and marking it with masking tape I applied it for real and installed the 2 bolts/brackets.






A few things I did less than perfectly worth pointing out that I discovered after installing (I hate it when I research something after I've already completed the job!). #1 - Dealers used 3/4" double sided tape and I bought 1/2" - not a big deal since this 3M stuff is so damn strong, it's not going anywhere. #2 - The bigger problem is that I installed the tape 1/8" behind the leading edge of the visor when it should have been flush up against it. Again, not a huge deal but now there's a crevice for dirt to kind of hide in. No notice in wind noise as a result of this little divot/pocket though. #3 - Unfortunately, I didn't know that there are two plastic brackets (see pic below from someone else's install) that hold down the spring loaded wind buffer thingy I mentioned earlier until yesterday so I never took these when picking at the junkyard. No big deal, the spring loaded buffer thingy pops up when you open the sunroof and hits the underside of the plastic wind deflector but it's not a big deal other than the audible ********** when it flips up and hits it. I'll either find a simple way to tie the buffer thingy down or just put some little self adhesive cabinet dots/pads where the two contact.




So with the sunroof visor complete, I now installed the Yakima round bars. I purchased new rubber pads for all the feet since they disintegrated when I removed them from the donor vehicle after having been on there in the Phoenix sun for many years. I managed to get the bars unlocked by taking them to REI. They have a set of every key Yakima makes so they tried every one until one worked and with code I was then able to order replacement 2 keys for like $16.

Then I mounted up the Gen1 Space Cadet roof box which just attaches with 4 ubolts. I specifically wanted the Space Cadet because it is one of the only roof boxes out there made by any brand that has a length that is short enough to fit behind the Montero's sun roof so as not to obscure the view (sleeping platform coming one day) and also short enough vertically that it stays closer to the body making it look sleeker imo and more aerodynamic. The box itself is short enough to fit completely behind the sunroof but because of the way the factory roof rails are designed the crossbars in the rear are like a foot forward of the rear edge so that does make the Space Cadet hang over the sunroof by a couple inches but still plenty of unimpaired viewing.

The Gen1 version of this box is cooler too cuz it has a more squared off shape to it, now they look more like bubble pods and are a little taller. Inno also makes a really nice little roof box that will fit behind the Montero's sunroof but it's like $400 new and Innos are not nearly as popular so very hard to find used.

I'm happy to report that the sunroof visor is amazing. The wind noise with the sunroof open is so much quieter now and as an added bonus the tinted acrylic gives you some shade from the sun while still enjoying the benefits of the sunroof.


All done:




What do you think about the white roof box color? Maybe I should paint it silver to match? I dunno, I kind of like it.

Oh ya, you might be wondering why I went with a mass market roof top box over an offroad roof rack? Well, I've had roof racks before and find that they rarely get used but always add weight and drag to your rig. Also i didn't like it how my gear would be exposed to the elements like rain and dust when up on a roof rack, it kept me from using it more. The idea behind this is you just treat it like more trunk room. I plan on using it for light stuff on camping trips. It is big enough to hold: 2 camp chairs, 2 sleep bags, 2 sleeping pads, and a 4 person tent with a little room left. That'll free up a lot of space in the Monty but the cool thing is since the box only weighs like 25lb and attaches with 4 ubolts, it's easy to take on and off and only use it when needed.

The biggest con is that these things are made of super thin plastic and I'm going to have to be very wary of tree branches when offroading.

 

[SONICMASD]

7/26/19: Still dealing with vibrations in the steering and pulling to the right when driving over 50mph. I've had the wheels balanced 3 times at PepBoys with that whole fiasco I already wrote about. Thanks to Ocdfisher I remembered that PepBoys doesn't do roadforce balancing so their tire balancing is basically worthless. So yesterday I took it to Discount Tire and they road force balanced the 4 on the car and although it was better, it still wasn't right. So then today I went back to Discount and they checked everything, found 3 wheels to be out. So then after getting those balanced, I took it for a spin and it was just as bad, took it back and had them balance the spare tire which used to be on the vehicle before I did my first ever 5 tire rotation, and put it back on the driver side front and put the brand new spare back as a spare to see if one tire being 2/32nds bigger than the others was the problem and nope, same shimmy.



The weird thing is that at the end of 5 tire balancing sessions (soooo much wasted time), each place as said they adjusted the balancing of the tires and that they were out from the previous balancing. It's like living in upside down world.

Ok, so I'm thinking possible culprits:

1. Suspension/Steering components. They're OG and have 170k on them but the first PepBoys checked everything on 2 separate visits and said everything was tight. But then again, they also ruined my camber bolts and literally got everything wrong: alignment, tire balancing, tpms reset, and said my oem toyota lug nut locks would fit on the oem toyota wheels I have so maybe I should ignore their opinion. So I'm going to go in to a real auto shop and have them check my front end for play. There 100% has to be something that needs to be replaced because when offroading I have this weird clunk on the driver front side but it doesn't feel integral, more like a worn sway bar link but I don't think that would cause vibration like this would it?

2. The wheels. The only variable is the wheels because I had these same tires on my 2003 Montero a few months ago and there were no vibrations. But I went from Toyota 4runner snowflake wheels to these TRD offroad wheels but I can't imagine factory wheels that have like almost no wear or miles on them (they looked brand new when I bought them) are the culprit. And yes, I'm running hubcentric rings.

It is soooo frustrating to drive this thing and have it pulling right and the wheel shaking. I've got other mods to do and buy but I don't want to spend more money or time on this rig until the steering is sorted cuz if I can't get this solved I might have to jump ship (I've been spending a lot of calories thinking of and researching what a 2007 Sequoia 4x4 build might look like).

 

[offthepath]

A few thoughts that seem most likely to me if the issue was not present before the build....
1-The rings are the issue. You are adding a variable that cannot be accounted for and it would be easy for a small discrepancy to be present (ie they are not square/round).

2-you have a dragging caliper/squared rotor. This would also account for the problems you are having and not been seen in any of the diagnostics.

3-tires. It would be easy for a tire to have a defect. Tires can wreck havoc with driveability issues. I know several people who had bad vibrations despite multiple rebalances. New tires solved the issue. I can’t remember from the thread, but if these are not new tires, it would be the first place I’d look.

If the problem was not present before, I would really look at what you changed in-between. It’s going to be something simple.

 

[SONICMASD]

Excellent ideas, thanks so much!

I’ll take off the hubcentric rings and see how it does - maybe i got a bad batch.

Toasty just did brake pads 9 months ago on it so I doubt that the rotors would have a problem but I’ll inspect them when taking the rings off the wheels.

The tires only have 5,000 miles on them. I bought them used over a year ago and had them on my previous gen3 with a different set of hub centric rings and no issues so I dont think they are the culprit.

Theres a definite clunk somewhere in the front end that i need to track down. If i had to bet right now, id put my money on that. Thx again, i’ll of course post back as i find out more.

 

[offthepath]

Hang in there, I'd hate to see you sell it. I want to see the finished product.

 

[RAWags44]

I would agree that you've got to look at the things you've changed, hub rings and wheels. Do you live close enough to someone else on here that you could swap wheels for a test? I just had a set of Falken Wildpeak's (235/85/16) installed on my 03, on the stock wheels and it is vibration-free! I ordered the tires on Amazon and had them installed at a tiny no-name place for $10 a wheel. Only say this to give you hope that this can be figured out.