Rad Rally (Dodge) Raider (akaMonteroakaPajero) Build

my photo skills are better than my tint skills lol.....

it really does look good in photos, but way less good in person, trust me....

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

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. 

Look into the transfer case causing vibrations. Never did find what caused the shaking in my Bronco but the t case was the only thing left to look at

Justjim75 said:

Look into the transfer case causing vibrations. Never did find what caused the shaking in my Bronco but the t case was the only thing left to look at

With the TC design of these, not sure how that could really be an issue since i was running in 2WD with the front axles unlocked. So the TC really isn't doing anything other than directly linking the trans with the rear DS. In any case, the vibration is clearly coming from the rear.

Before testing out if greasing the U-Joints worked, I was doing other oily stuff so also pulled the diff fill plug in the rear and dumped in some friction modifier to try to eliminate the chatter on slow turns from the LSD. Same stuff that solved the same issue on the e30. Went out for a drive and the chatter was almost immediately reduced by 2-3 turns in, and almost gone after doing a lap around the neighborhood.

My local parkway is a 50mph zone and has periodic lights (and radar traps). I pulled out of the neighborhood at the beginning of a long-ish area and gave it a valiant effort to get it up to 65 or so on a fairly short straight with enough room left to lift off and coast to replicate the vibration issue. When I did that I could barely feel the vibration (though it was still there) before having to slow for a light. Hooked a U-turn and did two more runs, same result. So seems to me the greas in the U-joint more or less solved the issue, at least to a large degree. Now, IDK if it's something that is more apparent once everything is very warm and doing it for a long distance - will have to test that out next time I have a reason to head over to the highway in thei struck. 

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

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.

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. 

THread is getting better and better. 

Loved to hear about the 300 mile ride. Looks like the Pajero did fantastic, which is good to hear. I keep hoping my FJ is in good shape in 15 years, so I can make threads like this. Though I have never kept anything that long, so we shall see, when boredom takes over. 

Amusing to hear about you with window down and window buffeting. I never in my life, in any car, ever drive with windows down. I am too OCD to get dust and other crap in the interior of my car. 

Keep up the good work. Good to see it was on I-95, as I said a while back 

mr2s2000elise said:

THread is getting better and better. 

Loved to hear about the 300 mile ride. Looks like the Pajero did fantastic, which is good to hear. I keep hoping my FJ is in good shape in 15 years, so I can make threads like this. Though I have never kept anything that long, so we shall see, when boredom takes over. 

Amusing to hear about you with window down and window buffeting. I never in my life, in any car, ever drive with windows down. I am too OCD to get dust and other crap in the interior of my car. 

Keep up the good work. Good to see it was on I-95, as I said a while back 

As someone who grew up driving Britsh sportscars, POS italian cars without A/C (in Italy), and an Integra with busted A/C (which I couldn't afford to fix at the time), I just kind of got used to "natural airflow" - and also being a smoker on and off over the years, kind of force of habit even when not smoking. 

Since most of my cars have black interiors, I long ago gave up thinking I could actually keep them clean anyhow :)

Have British cars 

have British sports cars 

lots of integras 

but if a/c didn't work I didn't buy 

luckily ac has been favorable to me 

I had couple of civic HF (Lower than dx), I just suffered with window up. Was too lazy to use the window crank. I am a sucker for punishment I suppose :) 

May least on my 67 Mini Cooper s, you can keep vent window open and at 80mph, nice wind goes throw. Only car I use that has natural wind flow lol 

Was never rich enough to own anything italian . With 529c, house payoff , car addiction, adult life, dreams of lambo ownership is in rear view mirror as life passes by. How sad it is... 

Plates arrived today (along with my GRM license plate frame, the last one ever sold!). There's something mildly embarrassing about driving around with paper tags (makes it look like I just "bought" this thing like this, which for some reason annoys me). So I'm happy to have the real plates finally.

Not sure if I love the car more, or if I love your picture taking, or the shiny blackness more. 

Delicious of the oversaturation of the red tails. That is what I do on my pictures

I'll be honest - I bought this Pixel 2 for the camera primarily (and because it's not an iPhone) and I've been consistently amazed at how good the lens and photo processing is. None of my cars has remotely good paint and a clay bar I bought 5 years ago is still in the box. The extent of "detailing" I do is pretty much limited to washing the cars every couple of weeks. 

I also was really into photography in my younger years (had thousands of $$ of lenses pre-SLR lol) and I like to think I have a good eye for staging things (and taking photos in the shade where flaws in paint don't show up as well!)

So for comparison's sake, here's a photo I took a few minutes earlier when it was in the sun on the street - raw shot, nothing changed. Definitely shows up the scratchy paint lol. Sometimes I feel a bit guilty about retouching the photos, but then again, nobody likes to look at photos that don't look good!

OOOOH the "scratchiness" of that paint would keep me up at night. 

If you lived closer, I would come and detail it all just for my own pleasure!!!

mr2s2000elise said:

OOOOH the "scratchiness" of that paint would keep me up at night. 

If you lived closer, I would come and detail it all just for my own pleasure!!!

Lol, then I won't show you the hood (lots of dents and scratches) or the B-pillars (where someone long ago took off the "Transport Team DON" stickers un-carefully). I think you saw earlier I did actually did some detailing with the cutitng compoun and random orbital. It made it look MUCH better from a distance, but a lot of the paint issues with this truck are scratches that go all the way through. The previous owner used it 100% as  recreational toy. I play hard with my vehicles and my only goal with cleaning is to keep rust away and such! The Porsche and GTI I at least try to keep looking fairly nice. The trucks and the rallycar.....they are made to get beat-up. Honestly, nothing annoys me more than the million lifted, heavily-modded Jeeps around here that are perfectly detailed without a speck of dirt even in the wheel wells haha.

But hey, if you're ever local, I have five cars whose paint needs a lot of love :)

I hope you don't think less of me now :D

You are one of the good guys. No one can think less of you. 

Here is a picture of my FJ 1 hour ago. It is FILTHY from the offroading last weekend. But that means I have about 12 hours of detailing on it. I am sure WHEN it is clean, people think its super mall queen perfect, like the jeep owners you mentioned. Which is fine by me. 

I keep them clean, not for others, but just for me :)

hah - I just want to find some dirt so my tires DO look like that. I feel like a poser driving around with perfectly clean new tires on this thing (the Sequioa, on the other hand, looks like your in the pic haha). 

So not much interesting to report in the last few days. I got in a new A/C idler pulley from Korea (totally forgot I even ordered it) to replace the one on the truck, which may have been ok but was a little noisy for my liking. So, installed that

Yeah, and that's about it for the moment. Note: my family has found that the Raider is much better for leaning on than my Porsche, VW, or BMW, which are all quite low, lol

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

hah - I just want to find some dirt so my tires DO look like that. I feel like a poser driving around with perfectly clean new tires on this thing (the Sequioa, on the other hand, looks like your in the pic haha). 

Buy spray on dirt 

mr2s2000elise said:

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

hah - I just want to find some dirt so my tires DO look like that. I feel like a poser driving around with perfectly clean new tires on this thing (the Sequioa, on the other hand, looks like your in the pic haha). 

Buy spray on dirt 

lol, oh dirty soon enough. I just need to take an hour cruise out to the Rally Farm (see my other thread) and do some "test and tune" haha. I want to go out there to give a good test to all the 4wd stuff before I go further to do real wheeling. 

So I got new speakers for my tow rig (Sequioa). I went with some Rockford Fosgates that my audiophile friends recommended as the best-sounding in the price range I had in mind - and they were totally right. Unfortunately, got the wrong size for the Sequoia's rear doors and didn't feel like dealing with a return. However, they are the right size for the Raider. I previously put some cheap Kenwood speakers in the Raider but honestly have been pretty unimpressed with them. They were cheap speakers and they sound basically like....a cheap speaker.

So, swapped the front door speakers in the Raider to the leftover RFs. And they really sound much, much better...

Anyhow, hope you had a good 4th of July.

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Which Rockford Fosgate speakers did you get?  I need to replace the ones in the Cappuccino at some point... 

I read through this thread last night and this morning, and you've made me fall completely in love with the platform. It just pushes all of the child of the 80s buttons and the end result you've got is really incredible. The custom pinstripes and paint and interior plaid....just wow!

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

 

 

First, I love this thread and the Montero is looking excellent. But can we talk about this battery for a moment? The Usable is a pretty brilliant marketing slogan. "I mean, it's Usable, right?"

Kenny_S2K said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Which Rockford Fosgate speakers did you get?  I need to replace the ones in the Cappuccino at some point... 

I think they were the R1's....like $50 at Crutchfield so very affordable.