Rad Rally (Dodge) Raider (akaMonteroakaPajero) Build

The weather was really nice this morning and not much else to do, so I decided to go ahead and get started on the roof. So after a bit of sanding and cleaning, put down a primer-coat (via foam roller) after a quick re-seal of the raingutter sealant in a few places. So for a while, pretended to be a Defender 90..

At one point I was considering do the roof white, but after looking at the primer I'm happy I changed my mind, since I really don't like the look that much on this vehicle.

After I gave it half the day in the sun, went ahead and did a quick re-prep of the surface and did the first coat of my actual color, which is Rustoleum "Sand" brush-on, with a small amount of black mixed in to get the color I want. I think it came out about where I was hoping it would

So will give that a day or two and then do another sand-down and a second coat, and then probably call it a day. I'll also do the rocker area (currently a gold-ish tan) in this color as well. 

That looks really good. It'll probably help a lot on the cabin temps too. 

bmw88rider (Forum Supporter) said:

That looks really good. It'll probably help a lot on the cabin temps too. 

yep, as someone who has owned a LOT of black cars, any way to keep temps down is helpful. This will have working A/C by the time I'm done with things, but every little bit helps. The rally e30 actually used to have a white roof for a while and it definitely helped. 

Diggin it! 

I feel like I'm slacking with the slowing pace of things lol. I have a few interesting things on the way (well, interesting to me at least), but for the past few days I've been continuing on with some of the tedious work on the outside of the truck, including removal of all the 31-year-old pinstripes. So after several hours using a combination of heat gun, razor blade, fingernails, and an eraser wheel, 6 full lines of pinstripes are gone from the entire truck.

man, this dent really annoys me. IDK what it is with that area on SUVs - my Sequoia has one in the same spot. Will have to pull the rear panel and see if I can push it back out from the inside....

In the near future I'll get out my random orbital sander thing and some compound and do the paint just to try to get rid of any remaing "ghost" lines from 30 years of faded paint around the old lines. This is really an issue on the upper pinstripes, which I may or may not replace.

For the bottom, I got a bit impatient on one side and went ahead and painted the area under the side crease. This is a bit higher-up than the old colored section (which had the 4-row pinstripes above it), but there is a reason for that which will become clear in a couple of weeks once I decide on the final look i want. Anyhow, much like the roof it looks pretty good from a few feet away - though like the roof if you get too close you can tell it's done by a roller and certainly far from perfect.

So yeah, that's where I am at the moment. More to come in the next few days. I'm back in the office for my 2-weeks "on" so not as much daylight time to get work done this week, plus it's been unseasonably cold and I haven't really wanted to be out in the garage. Supposed to be back in the 70s and 80s as the weekend approaches. 

Really enjoying this build!  Love your attention to detail and how you have documented your progress.  Quick question, can you share exactly which products you used on your wheels?  I really love the color you achieved on them!

Kenny_S2K said:

Really enjoying this build!  Love your attention to detail and how you have documented your progress.  Quick question, can you share exactly which products you used on your wheels?  I really love the color you achieved on them!

The wheels are black primer under duplicolor "antique bronze" wheel paint (spray) that I picked up online, over that there is some matte clear coat that I think is actually for engines lol...

If you put a lighter color primer underneath it the wheels would be lighter bronze, fyi

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

 

 

Is door open in the picture, or misaligned?

Rear dent HAS to go.

Not sure why some SUVs have that. 

mr2s2000elise said:

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

 

 

 

Is door open in the picture, or misaligned?

 

Rear dent HAS to go.

Not sure why some SUVs have that. 

Good eyes :) it's open. If I closed it completely the weather stripping would have smudged the paint on the inner sill since it was still tacky when I took the picture.

First order of business today was to turn the truck around so I can work on the other side and access the back easier. So got that done with a quick loop around the street....

So first thing - as I mentioned earlier, I've been getting a check engine light in odd circumstances. ONLY when the car is at idle, but it goes away immediately when given any throttle whatsoever, even the tiniest little top. Then comes back once I'm off the gas. To check codes on these you need an analog multimeter to watch the "sweeps" - so my 3-4 digital multimeters were of no use and I had to hit Amazon to get a cheap old-school one. I hooked it up and turned the ignition on. With this system, it gives long sweeps for the first "number" (i.e. two long sweeps = first digit 2) and short sweeps for the second number (i.e. 5 short sweeps = second digit 5) to give you a code, which you then cross-reference with a chart to see what the issue is. If the computer has no codes, it just endlessly does repeated long sweeps (forever).

So, I just got the endless long sweeps, indicating no codes are stored in the ECU. So that's pretty wierd. I'm not really noticing anything suggesting anything is wrong - other than the initial high cold idle (common on these), the engine seems to run great. So will have to mess around and see what else it might be. 

Next up, my seatbelts (original) were done - no lockup at all, and overall pretty old-looking. I decided to order one (not two initially) off of ebay - jsut some aftermarket belt - to see if it's any good since the price was decent. It came in today. So the belt and receptacle and hardware are all very nice and seem to be good quality (frankly, they seem better than the OEM stuff on this truck). Only issue is the retractor setup is reversed from stock - instead of sitting in the cavity inside the body, I had to mount it sticking outward for everything to align correctly. Mildly annoying, but since it's uder/behind the seat I just said screw it and installed it that way

Had to cut out a little section of the interior trim but after that everything fits fine and the seatbelt works great. I'll order the 2nd one now that I know it's good. 

After that, for no apparent reason i saw my random orbital buffer sitting on a shelf and figured "let's see what this will do on the Raider." So I cleaned up the panels and hit them with some cutting compound and a new pad. Nobody is going to mistake this as a show car, ever, but it did make the paint looks substantially better, even with all the dents and scratches...

Before and after...

Also pretty much got rid of all the pinstripe "ghost lines" left over

Oh, and a quick plug for this thing. Half the price of the 3M eraser wheel and works just as good. Sold by a small business in Australia via Amazon.

Ok, now let's get painting. Last night I did some sanding and masking, so today I did a second coat on the roof to finish that off

Then moved on to the other rocker and the back section. Nothing too exciting here at the moment. The back looks a bit strange just beige down at the bottom right now, but I do have a plan here and I think it will turn out good once I'm totally done with what I'm going to do.

Have you tried the code check with it idling so the check engine light is on?  Not all old stuff stores codes in a useful way, you might need to get it to tell you while it's happening.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

Have you tried the code check with it idling so the check engine light is on?  Not all old stuff stores codes in a useful way, you might need to get it to tell you while it's happening.

FSM is pretty clear that the car does not need to be on, just the ignition. The fact that it was giving me the constant sweep "no codes" should mean that it is working correctly. but I will try with it on today and see what happens

Buffing/compound did the truck 

NOW she looks sexy!!! To me a clean and shiny car is like having clean shoes/clean clothes/brushing your teeth. It's a requirement to be presentable 

love the shine! She has now arrived!! 

mr2s2000elise said:

Buffing/compound did the truck 

 

NOW she looks sexy!!! To me a clean and shiny car is like having clean shoes/clean clothes/brushing your teeth. It's a requirement to be presentable 

love the shine! She has now arrived!! 

Lol. Don't get too excited I still have to do the other side. And I suspect this will be the one and only time I do this on this vehicle haha. I've only ever done it once on my Porsche for that matter!

So I'm pretty excited today about what came in the mail. I mean, I knew it was coming, and I can't really use it yet, but its kind of a "finishing piece" for the interior (at least the driver's area).

Condor Speed Shop has been our primary sponsor for rally since the very early days, and though they specialize in making performance parts for BMWs, they are also an OMP dealer. So when the time came to get a steering wheel, I knew who to call. For this truck and its loose steering box and slow steering I didn't want a small "racing" wheel (I use a 340mm wheel on the rally car), but the giant stock wheel just sucks (410mm or so, and ugly). After much searching, found that OMP actually makes a steering wheel for off-roading and off-road racing called the "Sand," which is 380mm with a polyurethane grip (vice leather/vinyl) so you can wash it easily, etc. 

So here it is. Looks nice with the yellow gauges

Compared to the stock wheel (with the tops even, so this is the full difference)

ok, so after putting that on, I did a bit of front suspension adjustments to get it into spec and level things off a bit (no pics, not that exciting). Did a quick camber check and both fronts are at about 1/2* positive, which is pretty much dead-on the factory spec. 

Oh, and had to represent my friends...

So after that, started messing around with vinyl. One of the upsides to having a vinyl cutter is trying out some ideas, so I started messing around with some basic stuff...

First test pattern

This is originally what I had in mind, with the progressively thick-to-thin lines, but once I put a test piece on truck IDK, I really don't like how it looks. Just looks a bit weird.

So I pulled that off and did a more basic "equal" line pattern and put that on

I think I like that better, though I'm still not 100% sure. Anyhow, got bored with doing that and decided to go do some other stuff. Maybe I'll think of something better, maybe I'll just use that. Since it's vinyl I can always take it off if it looks bad, and rolls of Oracal 651 is pretty inexpensive. 

I like the thick to thin concept. Might look better if the tan "blank" areas also go thick to thin with the color transition.

bgkast (Forum Supporter) said:

I like the thick to thin concept. Might look better if the tan "blank" areas also go thick to thin with the color transition.

yeah, that's the next version - which is essentially like it was from the factory. 

I like either.  I wouldn't know it wasn't stock.  I prefer the thick to thin.

Maybe thick to thin with just 3 bars keeping off the 2 thinnest bars. 

Another vote for the thick to thin. Maybe it's just my eastern european blood shining through, but my initial reaction to the 3 equal lines was that it reminded me of adidas track suits.

That said, I think both options look great. Another one of those small visual details that make a huge difference! 

artur1808 said:

Another vote for the thick to thin. Maybe it's just my eastern european blood shining through, but my initial reaction to the 3 equal lines was that it reminded me of adidas track suits.

That said, I think both options look great. Another one of those small visual details that make a huge difference! 

Nope that was definitely my first thought as well after I put it on. 1980s Adidas tube socks!

Ok, so on your advice I tweaked the line spread/design and basically ended up doing something that isn't too different from the original vinyl that Dodge put on this thing lol, just in different color. So here's how it came out. A few little spots I'm not too happy with, but they are very minor and I'm probably the only one who will ever actually notice them lol. I have a few little things to do, but overall this is how it's going to stay:

I'll note that in the photo below, the camera did something funny, since the panels ahead of and behind the door have a slight bit more curve to the metal, which makes the line look wavy here. I promise you, it's dead-straight in person.

Those look great, Dude!!!

In reply to Recon1342 :

Thanks, I think it turned out decent :)

Anyhow, one other thing tonight. I've been trying to figure out my high cold idle, so figured I'd check stuff out. First I checked to make sure the idle set screw was in the "stock" position per the FSM (it was). So to check the throttle position sensor you put a feeler gauge (.65mm) between the set-screw stop and the throttle cable plate/servo and then rotate the TPS until you find the point where two pins cut continuity.

So as I suspected, at noplace within the TPS rotation range did it lose continuity, which tells me the TPS isn't registering when the throttle is open or closed (not sure which direction it's "stuck" at). So presumably it's sending the wrong signal to the idle control valve (which has been cleaned and should be working fine), which is of course a problem.

So, I have a new TPS on the way and hopefully that will solve the issue....

Spent the morning out putting some miles on the rally car with Josh (bluej) in his soon-to-be turbo B23000, so that was fun

When I got back the new muffler had arrived. Just one of the smaller Magnaflows, since selection is limited with the smaller inlet/outlet sizes (and I don't feel like messing with reducers). Unlike the round-profile OEM exhaust this one is a thin oval so pretty compact.

So Mitsubishi on the SWB basically used a crapload of oddball curves on the exhaust and it's a pretty snug fit to clear the axle, frame, and gas tank. That's pretty annoying since I can't easily fab up a new pipe. So, chopped the OEM pipe off the muffler and did some of my typically-mediocre welding to put it all together. 

So, mounted more or less where the OEM one was, because there's no reason not to. The tilt-down position is odd, but whatever.  My welding on exhaust is so ugly. I did a double-line here for strength, but it certainly ended up looking ugly. 

Gotta fab up a couple rear mounts and add an extention to the tailpipe, but at least it's on there. Even without a muffler this truck isn't particularly loud (stock cat). With the Magnaflow it's not loud at all, but it does have a much nicer tone to it compared to the stock Bosal. Good enough. 

Then spent some time doing the paint on the passenger side. Man, this paint has a lot of scratches and little dents, especially the hood. Oh well, less to worry about when I'm abusing it.  Looks pretty good from 10 feet away :)

In other news everything seems to run fine. I replaced the TPS last night with one that I had from the parts Raider. The multimeter test on it showed it working correctly, and the truck idles fine. But now it's throwing a full-time CEL, and I read the code as 14 (Throttle Position Sensor). Go figure. So not really sure what's up with that. I have a cheap new one coming, so we'll see if that gets rid of the light.