Pitchblack Rally Recce Raider Build

[irish44j]

Had to do yard work and paint a bathroom this morning, but did make some time for some garage work today as well, of course.
But first, had to do my normal Sunday "drive all the old cars for 10 minutes" since they're not getting much use with this stay-at-home order. So I generally will take them for a few laps around the neighborhood (bordered by a parkway where I can open them up a bit). Took the Porsche out first and as usual, man it drives nice and is so smooth. On the hard corners it just hunkers down and locks in as you accelerate through. Then the e30, which is just raw (with the M50) and raucous. On the parkway my test loop involves a U-turn and then flatout back to the turn to my neighborhood, but I throttled-on too soon and lifted the inside rear and almost looped it (no sway bars on a rally car!). Anyhow, nobody was there to see it anyhow, so whatever.

Raider stuff.....painted two more of the wheels (I don't have the patience to prep and paint them all at once...)

Spent a while searching under the truck for the plug for the reverse light switch off the trans. But of course, there isn't one, because this truck was an automatic. So spent some time with my wiring diagrams to figure out where everything is. While at it, I realized the truck also has a transmission lockout for the starter (for the auto), so had to do more wire-hunting to find that connector, which I had buried under the carpet thinking I wasn't going to need it with the manual. Oops, the connector has the two wires to the automatic shifter lockout switch, as well as the reverse wires. After a quick test to make sure what was what...

Then joined to the two black/yellow wires to bypass the start lock (tested with a blip of the starter as working). For the reverse lights I ran the wires from the transmission through a small hole I drilled next to the shift console (with grommet) and spliced them into the body-side wires

So now the reverse lights work

Also realized the auto console was lit, so I have a wire/bulb there that goes to nothing right now....will have to find something useful to do with that (maybe light the little dash pocket or something, we'll see.

So while I was at this, I noticed that when I put the center stack back in, I apparently swapped two plugs with each other. One of them had something to do with the auto lockout, so it made no difference anyhow. But the other was power for the dash lighting. I had noticed it wasn't working but figured it was a bad dimmer switch. So kind of lucky I happened to notice this while I was doing something else, because it would have never occurred to me to look at those connectors later if I was troubleshooting!
So, now I have dash lights

Notice the "A/T TEMP" warning light. I'm guessing that's on because the A/T temp switch no longer exists (it's dummed off on the manual's thermostat housing) and the wire just hangs there. So either I'll just ground it out (not sure if that will work) or just remove the bulb from the cluster.
Oh, and put a bulb in the interior light so it works now too

So, after all that I'm thinking to myself, "well, let's crank the engine a few times to circulate oil" even though I'm not going to actually start it for another week or so. Now first off, in these engines apparently just cranking it doesn't actually build enough pressure to circulate oil. But I read that after the fact. So cranked it a few times. Then did it again, watching the oil pressure gauge, which was doing nothing. Meanwhile, cranking quickly got slower after about 5 second - like there was lots of friction. Because I'm a moron....

Yeah, there's no freaking oil in the engine - because I didn't plan to actually crank it or start it for another week or two! Filling the diffs I guess mentally screwed me up into thinking I had put oil in as well (disregard the fact that there's a piece of paper right over the dash saying "ADD OIL BEFORE STARTING." Whoops. Worried about my rings in particular and assuming them as the source of the friction, since the bearings have plenty of assembly lube on them........so pulled all the plugs and gave a couple quick squirts of Marvel Mystery Oil (old man trick that may or may not be the best stuff), then buttoned it up again. THEN added oil (since I hadn't bought oil for this truck yet, I just dumped in whatever was sitting around in half-full jugs since it's gonna get drained quickly anyhow). Then turned the engine by hand a few cranks and felt it loosen up as the rings got lubed up (and yes, i did oil the cylinder bores before installing the pistons). Anyhow, gave it a few quick cranks and it was substantially faster and no feeling of "friction" like previously. So hopefully no damage was done - I didn't actually start the engine, just turned it over a handful of times with the starter before I realized something was off, so should be ok. But this is the kind of dumb thing that I do every so often because I have no freaking patience to do things in the order I planned to.
I also noticed after cranking there seems to be a small leak from the PS pump area, so I'll have to see where that's coming from. May just need a hose clamp tightened or something.

 

[irish44j]

So where were we.....right, the dumb engine thing. So today when I got home from the office I first cracked open the oil filter seal and then put compressed air into the oil filler with a rubber seal around it. I read someplace this will help to prime the pump. So did that for a while until a bit of oil started dripping from the filter. So that should mean the oil pump is primed. With the plugs still pulled out (and full oil this time) I cranked the car for a bit - happily, it was extremely smooth. In fact so smooth and quiet I wasn't even sure if it was actually cranking, since I could just barely hear the pulsation of the pistons when listening closely. More importantly, with the plugs out and a fresh starter, it cranked very quickly and i immediately saw the oil pressure rise on the stock gauge.

It made it up to about 18psi in about 10 seconds and didn't go higher, so that's probably the max pressure it can push at non-running speed. In any case, everythign sounded very smooth and plenty of oil came out quickly when I cracked the oil filter seal afterwards, so there's oil in the engine, and pump, and no sign of any issues from my little stupidity yesterday. In truth, I should have done a compression test while I had the plugs out, but didn't think about it at the time and frankly, at this point I'm just gonna fire it up and run it and assume things are right until it does something to make me think otherwise. So yeah...

Got a box in from Fourgreen, which is a Korean parts distributor. As you probably know the Montero/Pajero didn't only turn in into the Raider and the Shogun, but it also became the Hyundai Galloper, for which parts are more widely available. They couldn't find two of the smaller things I wanted, but got me most of what I ordered a few weeks ago.

Clutch fork boot to replace the brittle/torn one I tried to fix previously (but failed). No pics of it installed, but much softer rubber than the old one and was pretty easy to do under the truck

And a new rear engine/transmission mount. The one I had seemed to be in usable shape but seemed a bit soft and I'm sure it's pretty old. They're pretty expensive from the usual overseas places, but the Galloper one is the same with the same part number and wasn't all that expensive.

Definitely sits a bit taller than the old one, fresh rubber.

And the last thing that came in as a new lower shift boot. Amusing that it came in a Hyundai parts bag, and inside that bag was a Mitsubishi parts bag, which the boot was in.

I couldn't get the gaskets that go with it (3 of them to go between the sandwich plates) so just cut out some of my own (not pretty but they work) and coated them with some RTV. Should be fine. So got that installed alongside the T/C shifter after some messing around to figure out which direction (it works both ways but orients the shifter too far toward the radio if you put it backwards. For anyone who cares, there's a little tiny dot in the shifter steel that faces forward. i assume it's a reference mark.

Then put the middle boot cover/body seal rubber piece on and sandwiched it with the console bracket as designed

And then the upper boots, knobs, and trim stuff

Shift action feels smooth (though i'm not used to such a lightweight and long shifter AT ALL) and it goes into all gears fine sitting still.

Oh, and grabbed a few of these stickers from a vendor in one of the FB groups. Thought it was appropriate for this truck.

 

[irish44j]

also, the aforementioned leak from the PS area was just some residual stuff from when I changed the pump. Thought I had gotten it all, but a bit was sitting in a cavity on the backside.

 

[irish44j]

On an unrelated note, I happened upon a few pics of my old XJ (my first truck project) that I bought as a favor from my friend's broke girlfriend long ago. It was a basket case, rusty, with RENIX engine management that I could not solve. But it was a 2-door 5-speed with vent windows (pretty rare). I spent a year refurb'ing it before decided I hated driving it (and really hated the seats and interior), and my wife bought a 4Runner soon after so I didn't have a real reason for it. Only got it dirty a couple times (no idea where those pics are)....Anyhow, it was cool looking, and I think you can see what my visual schemes generally look like (yeah...uh...black)

 

[PacS14]

Cool sticker man! That was a nice looking jeep.

 

[irish44j]

Cool sticker man! That was a nice looking jeep.

Yeah, a shame it never ran well and was such a lousy driver. And I love driving old imperfect cars, but it really was no fun at all, even with a manual. But I hated the whole interior so much that may have colored my dislike as well. Once Carin got the 4Runner, which is such an excellent truck the Jeep just had to go.
--
Got the rest of my fluids today, so did some filling and making a mess. Redline MTL in the transfer case. Redline MTL in the transmission (though I came up a quart short on this gallon, so put in a quart of MT-90 to get it full)

Made a complete mess of my drip pan (thankfully thought to actually put it there for once) since I was pumping a bit too aggressively and filled the trans a ways past the hole. Oops

And filled up the coolant

Since I was filling the washer fluid in my DD, figured I'd fill the rear washer reservoir on the Raider to see if the sprayer worked (yeah, the Raider has THREE washer reservoirs - rear, windshield, and headlights - all totally separate....But happy to say the rear wiper works (on regular and intermittent) and the sprayer works fine. Though I seem to have misplaced (or perhaps thrown out) the wiper assembly for the rear window. Not sure why I did that lol..but hardly an urgent thing

So with all that done, I hooked up the exhaust front end (y-pipe, cat, O2 sensor). And then thought, "hey, why not try to start it up?" So I did. And it didn't start. Hmm.

Checked fuel: definitely had pressure at the fuel rail.

Checked wiring and stuff: everything seemed tight.

Shot a bit of starting fluid into the TB and didn't even get a stumble, so...no spark. Fk....pulled a wire off one plug and stuck a spare spark plug in it and had the wife crank the engine while I tried to ground it....no spark. Hooked my timing light up just to see if it would flash....nothing. This is my nightmare since electrical stuff is BY FAR my weakest aspect of car stuff - and I have almost no experience in distributor electrical systems - the Porsche never needed anything, and the BMW has always had electronic multi-coil. So did a bit of troubleshooting and didn't really come up with anything obvious. Timing I'm not sure is perfectly set, but if I'm not getting spark, that's irrelevant anyhow.

Keep in mind all this stuff came right out fo the Blue Raider, which was running when I pulled the engine. I did replace the coil and distributor cap/rotor and wrap up some wiring. Double-checked all the wiring connections and seemed find. Double-checked the ECU and noticed one of the plugs wasn't totally in. FOUND IT! Plugged it in fully and.....still nothing. Damn.

So, sometime this week I'll be running through all the various electrical test procedures to see if I can figure it out. And hating every minute of it. There are a few seemingly typical things that cause 6G72 Montero no-start/no-spark so will start with those - apparently the optical sensor in the dizzy goes bad, though not sure why that would have happened in the few weeks since the car last ran. I'll swap my other ECU in to see. But I put the Blue Raider ECU in, so again, it was working a few weeks ago. Then a matter of tracing wires and hoping I just forgot to hook something up or something else dumb/obvious. I don't know enough about these engines to immediately know where to start.

On an unrelated upside, I did confirm my repair of the 4WD indicator sensors was successful, as the 4WD light comes up when I put the case into 4HI or 4LO. So, that's good. Also got a little bag of tiny LED bulbs the mail, so will redo all the gauge cluster lights with those to get a bit more brightness.

So, usually I'd stress about stuff like this, but I suspect this is just something dumb that I'll eventually figure out - and since I am months ahead of schedule on this build I'm in no rush at all, really.

Oh yeah....a couple other things.

1. I'm tire shopping (trying to stimulate the economy with my government-given check, which i kind of think is dumb they sent to me, but whatever....I'll put most of it in the girls' college accounts and buy some tires with part of it). Most likely going to go with General Grabbers. I've had the popular BFG A/T's on the XJ and didn't love them in rain/snow. The Grabbers are supposedly much better in those conditions. And a bit less expensive. So really now just deciding if I'm going to go 30x9.5 or 31x10.5. Seems like the 31s are the popular choice for non-lifted Gen1 Montero guys doing light wheeling. I will mostly be on tarmac and dirt/gravel fire roads with this rather than mudding or rock-crawling, since don't really feel the need to go with anything bigger. We'll see. John Williams and Sean Leeper posted up pics of theirs on 31s and Poms for me, and that looks about right to me...

2. Got in some sample chips from Monstaliner. It's a roll-on bedliner-type paint that a lot of 4x4 guys use to do their exeriors. I don't plan to do the whole truck, but my intent is to paint the rocker area below the belt (currently that gold-ish color) as well as the roof above the gutters. So the goal is to try to get something that's a good shade to match the wheels and interior. Probably a summer project but figured might as well get some samples. This stuff is pretty cool - much better than other bedliner textures I've used before.

 

[Montynv]

Question,where did you get the LEDs for the instrument cluster?

 

[irish44j]

Question,where did you get the LEDs for the instrument cluster?

SuperbrightLEDs.com

I've gotten dash stuff from them for prior products (my 30+ year old Porsche gauges look amazing now at night)...good stuff, good price, and they have basically an online reference catalog to show what fits your car. I mean, the stuff is made in China but it's good quality and i've never had a failure (even in the rally car).

For the Gen1, you need the 194 bulb for the gauge clusters. I think it's a smaller bulb for the HVAC controls and stuff - I have to take that out and check.

I would, however, not get LED bulb for your high-beam indicator unless you like to blind yourself on dark nights lol. Will post pics of how these turn out when I do them.

 

[Montynv]

Thanks much appreciated!! I have heard of them but I haven't heard of anyone that has purchased from them. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Salonika]

So with a distributor, does that mean you don’t have crank & cam position sensors?

 

[sedole]

Glad to see my gen 1 helped out with that tire decision! I love my gen 3, but I have regretted selling the gen 1 every day lol...

Odd issue with the no spark at all...hopefully it's something simple!

 

[irish44j]

So with a distributor, does that mean you don’t have crank & cam position sensors?

Yep, that's what it means. The dizzy gears go directly to the cam so that basically "is" the cam position sensor for all intents and purposes. And then you get timing with the crank by using a timing light and rotating the distributor (which I will do once it's running).

And on a related note, problem seems to be solved as first thing this morning I swapped out the ECU to my other ECU and it fired right up. Kind of lumpy and rough but should be better once I get the timing set and double-check all the plug wires.

 

[Inyo_man]

Great build!
...really enjoying your work and progress.
31x10.5's look great on the Gen. I...and Monstaliner is solid product.

My kid's '86 Toyota p/u that we recently got back on the road has a new set of General Grabber X3 in the 31x10.5...they seem like a good compromise between an AT and MT (although, only a two ply sidewall). We also used Monstaliner on the rig. The bed of the truck was rolled on (multiple layers), for the rocker panels we used an undercoat spray gun (giving it a more textures look).

Keep the posts coming!
Cheers

 

[irish44j]

So another update: After being reminded that for the ECU to learn timing, you have to ground this little plug, I did that and that improved things significantly. However, still feels like it has a misfire. So pulled all the plugs and #2 and #4 both look pretty clean (the other four were already sooty). A bit more investigating and it turns out #4's wire end is broken, so that explains that one. #2's wire seems fine and the plug is sparking when grounded, so not sure why it's so clean. I wonder if the injector isn't firing and/or is clogged. Will have to investigate further. And of course, I have no other spark plug wires here that will work for me since all my other cars are coils except the Porsche, and it has different plug attachments that won't work on the Raider.

So...back to RockAuto and order another set of wires. At least they're really cheap...

And yes, I'm quite certain I broke the wire myself with the dozen times I pulled them off when trying to troubleshoot the no-start.

Oh, also did a compression test while there, though engine wasn't warm or broken in so I don't put much credence in the numbers. All cylinders were getting somewhere between about 140 and 160, which sounds about right from what I've read online

#2 arcing so the wire is ok

plugs with my sloppy numbering. With all the cranking i've been doing and rich starts, not surprising everything is a bit dark.

 

[irish44j]

Got tired of messing with mechanicals, so got in the car and pulled the gauges and center console to 1) see why some of the HVAC lights weren't working and 2) put in LED bulbs to see how they look.

Here's a day shot, just for the hell of it

So got them all done, not too tough really. Not sure I like the LEDs since they turn the gauges more yellow than orange (maybe I'll get some orange LEDs). And seriously, Mitsubishi.....so the main gauge faces are basically backlit (light shines through the colored area to light evenly). But the center gauge cluster is super-ghetto lighting....basically the faces are solid and just back about 1/4" from the front so lighting behind it "wraps around" the sides and illuminates the faces. It's annoying how badly they "match" the main gauges. oh well.....