eyehate
Member
The Full Monty:
Starting with a bone stock 125k mile silver 2003 3rd gen Montero Limited. This thread will house my breaks, fixes, frustrations and triumphs.
The History:
To start, I come from the performance car world (10 years of drifting and 2 seasons of Formula Drift to be specific). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mt6uCk2ZOw
I have little experience building anything for offroading / overlanding except for my stock jeep Cherokee (that we drove absolutely everywhere) which was sold for this here unit. The wife and I love camping, and hopefully this will make things easier.
The First Adventure:
We bought it and immediately put it through the ringer. Checked the coolant and oil and off we went to Red River, New Mexico's "Goose Lake". Bald all season tires and all. It includes a river crossing followed by 10 miles of trail, going up almost 1300 feet to a lake. Not a hard trail, but by far not the easiest.
I chose this one as the first outing, as A) The Jeep more than likely would have made it, and B) I knew that guides run these trails twice a day in case we broke down or any other number of issues taking a car we just bought 10 miles off grid.
We got a late start due to the family we bought the Monty from showing up an hour late to sell it. Drove home, filled up with gas, loaded her up and headed off 3 hours to Red River. Center diff light blinking, pulling over, turning off and on then continuing the whole way (fixed after our adventure though)... We arrived shortly before dark (was hoping to get there well before that, but what can you do), and with just a smidge of daylight left we attempted the river crossing that was immediately after the turn off for the trail. I had googled videos of the river crossing and watched 5-10 of them, and it seemed ok based off that. Looking at it seemed a bit deeper than the videos, but we went for it anyway.
Here is a video of me fully submarining the front end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1uH0kZcx0M How it made it through that with no snorkel and sans hydro locking is beyond me, but it did and once on the other side, I felt quite a bit better about the purchase. Once notch in the belt for the Monty.
We continued on as I learned how the traction control worked with light application of the brakes when one wheel would be elevated, vs turning TC off for mud or sand. There were a few steep sandy climbs that it made it up no problem as well. Another notch in the belt for the Monty. Slowly feeling better and better about how capable it actually is.
It's now pitch black out, and we are still 3 miles from the lake mobbing forward at about about 4mph, when we see a fully decked out 4runner parked off the side of the road in a little nook. Strange, we thought, "wonder why he picked there to camp", and continued onwards. No more than a mile up the trail we hit a patch of snow about 20 feet long and about 2.5 feet deep heavily rutted and a high center section. I put her in 4 low center lock and attempted it 3 times before going in with enough momentum to clear it. I was beaming about how this little patch had turned him around and we made it up with a stock bald tired Montero...
Boy was I in for it. About an 8th mile from the lake, we hit another patch of snow. This time it was about 40 feet long and ranged from about 2 to 4 feet deep in spots. We consistently made it about 4 feet from the fronts clearing and being able to move forward. I tried probably 15 times to no avail. Time number 16, I got us high centered as all get up, and the bald tires made nice little ice cups around all 4 tires.
I busted out the old foldable shovel, and in t-shirt and shorts, dug out under the passenger rear tire enough to get a jack under, jacked it up and put as many sticks as I could under it. Backed off the jack, and boom! 2 hours later we were out and parked on the side of the road just like the 4runner, tired hungry and defeated.
The next day we went back down, crossed the river and hit another lake camping spot about 45 minutes away. Using the 4wd for almost 25 miles of driving fixed the center diff light blinking issue, so that was awesome. For its first outing, even with the ****ty tires, I think it did phenomenal, and with a few tweaks could border on epic.
2nd post will have all of the issues I have encountered / fixed after said first adventure, then on to the making it cooler parts.
Starting with a bone stock 125k mile silver 2003 3rd gen Montero Limited. This thread will house my breaks, fixes, frustrations and triumphs.
The History:
To start, I come from the performance car world (10 years of drifting and 2 seasons of Formula Drift to be specific). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mt6uCk2ZOw
I have little experience building anything for offroading / overlanding except for my stock jeep Cherokee (that we drove absolutely everywhere) which was sold for this here unit. The wife and I love camping, and hopefully this will make things easier.
The First Adventure:
We bought it and immediately put it through the ringer. Checked the coolant and oil and off we went to Red River, New Mexico's "Goose Lake". Bald all season tires and all. It includes a river crossing followed by 10 miles of trail, going up almost 1300 feet to a lake. Not a hard trail, but by far not the easiest.
I chose this one as the first outing, as A) The Jeep more than likely would have made it, and B) I knew that guides run these trails twice a day in case we broke down or any other number of issues taking a car we just bought 10 miles off grid.
We got a late start due to the family we bought the Monty from showing up an hour late to sell it. Drove home, filled up with gas, loaded her up and headed off 3 hours to Red River. Center diff light blinking, pulling over, turning off and on then continuing the whole way (fixed after our adventure though)... We arrived shortly before dark (was hoping to get there well before that, but what can you do), and with just a smidge of daylight left we attempted the river crossing that was immediately after the turn off for the trail. I had googled videos of the river crossing and watched 5-10 of them, and it seemed ok based off that. Looking at it seemed a bit deeper than the videos, but we went for it anyway.
Here is a video of me fully submarining the front end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1uH0kZcx0M How it made it through that with no snorkel and sans hydro locking is beyond me, but it did and once on the other side, I felt quite a bit better about the purchase. Once notch in the belt for the Monty.
We continued on as I learned how the traction control worked with light application of the brakes when one wheel would be elevated, vs turning TC off for mud or sand. There were a few steep sandy climbs that it made it up no problem as well. Another notch in the belt for the Monty. Slowly feeling better and better about how capable it actually is.
It's now pitch black out, and we are still 3 miles from the lake mobbing forward at about about 4mph, when we see a fully decked out 4runner parked off the side of the road in a little nook. Strange, we thought, "wonder why he picked there to camp", and continued onwards. No more than a mile up the trail we hit a patch of snow about 20 feet long and about 2.5 feet deep heavily rutted and a high center section. I put her in 4 low center lock and attempted it 3 times before going in with enough momentum to clear it. I was beaming about how this little patch had turned him around and we made it up with a stock bald tired Montero...
Boy was I in for it. About an 8th mile from the lake, we hit another patch of snow. This time it was about 40 feet long and ranged from about 2 to 4 feet deep in spots. We consistently made it about 4 feet from the fronts clearing and being able to move forward. I tried probably 15 times to no avail. Time number 16, I got us high centered as all get up, and the bald tires made nice little ice cups around all 4 tires.
I busted out the old foldable shovel, and in t-shirt and shorts, dug out under the passenger rear tire enough to get a jack under, jacked it up and put as many sticks as I could under it. Backed off the jack, and boom! 2 hours later we were out and parked on the side of the road just like the 4runner, tired hungry and defeated.
The next day we went back down, crossed the river and hit another lake camping spot about 45 minutes away. Using the 4wd for almost 25 miles of driving fixed the center diff light blinking issue, so that was awesome. For its first outing, even with the ****ty tires, I think it did phenomenal, and with a few tweaks could border on epic.
2nd post will have all of the issues I have encountered / fixed after said first adventure, then on to the making it cooler parts.
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