Rad Rally (Dodge) Raider (akaMonteroakaPajero) Build

Pretty sure that sticker establishes the build as officially reaching rad rally raider status.

johndej said:

Pretty sure that sticker establishes the build as officially reaching rad rally raider status.

lol, I thought it was appropriate. I mean, this thing is more rally than most of the cars Mitsubishi slaps the badge on :)

I put mine on the electric pit scooter

I think the Rally Art stickers look great and appropriate. I wouldn't be apposed to a subtle Dakar sticker or two also. 

John Welsh (Moderate Supporter) said:

I think the Rally Art stickers look great and appropriate. I wouldn't be apposed to a subtle Dakar sticker or two also. 

 

look more closely at any photo of the back of the Raider, over on the right side of the rear glass ;)

EDIT, I guess I don't have any pics of that side posted here recently. Here you go :)

Come west - we can take both the 60s out with your Raider. 

I am thinking of doing this to mine from the Paris Dakar

I do plan to do a cross-country trip in the next year or two over a 2-3 week span. But, that's gonna happen in the Porsche, since that's specifically why I built that car. Not sure I want to do that kind of distance in a SWB windbox getting 15mpg lol.  The Porsche gets well over 30mpg lol. 

So, maybe i'll just have to ride along with you in one of the 60s. Also, I fully support your plan! I thought about doing the Pajero Dakar look, but there are already a few guys who have done that with SWB Gen1's, so that would make it less fun. 

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

If you are out here - take one of the 60s. No need ride along. I got two 60, one 200, and the FJC - take your pick - all sitting around unused 

if you bring your 911, I will dust off the Elise or s2000 (neither have been driven over the last 16 months) and drive along. If in 24 months, I will have an Atom in the garage. 
 

i was just looking at the 16 x country trips I have done. Best mpg has been 21mpg, worst has been 9 mpg 

never owned anything that I wanted to x country thst got 30 mpg ! Luxury 

mr2s2000elise said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

If you are out here - take one of the 60s. No need ride along. I got two 60, one 200, and the FJC - take your pick - all sitting around unused 

if you bring your 911, I will dust off the Elise or s2000 (neither have been driven over the last 16 months) and drive along. If in 24 months, I will have an Atom in the garage. 
 

i was just looking at the 16 x country trips I have done. Best mpg has been 21mpg, worst has been 9 mpg 

never owned anything that I wanted to x country thst got 30 mpg ! Luxury 

Lol, its a 924S, So very slippery through the air and a four-cylinder engine!

Did some reconfiguring and finishing of the rack today. In the prior setup, I was getting some pretty annoying resonance off of the front end (and possibly the round bars) that was really intolerable. I can deal with general wind noise (it's expected in a truck like this) but this resonance was basically making the roof vibrate. After changing various small things to test what was making it, I decided to take some drastic measures and cut the front bar (the one in front of the fairing) off near the ends. I left enough "corner wrap" to build some new light bar brackets. 

After that, I built a new fairing that goes down farther, near the windshield weatherstripping, and used some secondhand door weatherstripping (from what old car, i have no idea, possibly its the hood seal from an e30, actually) at the bottom to cushion it from direct contact on the roof.

Then I added two 24x48" pieces of FarmTek chicken coop flooring. I've had this stuff on the Sequoia for years and it's a great platform and really easy to cut and for with some heat. Also very lightweight. This was to accomplish a few things: 1) to make a platform to carry cargo better than bare bars, 2) reduce wind noise over the round bars and 3) well, it looks cool. This is an old Land Rover trick. This stuff is also very inexpensive.

Used some tapered-head self-tapping screws to attach it to a few of the bars (better than the zipties I was initially going to use).

Here's some overall shots of the rack with all the new stuff. The fairing definitely needs some stickers.......

In other news, I'm currently on lockdown for the second time this autumn. First time a co-worker was suspected of having COVID so I locked down for a few days until his test came back negative. In this case, no idea of any contact with anyone, but for some reason last week I lost most of my taste ability (no other symptoms, and can smell fine). It's come back and gone away a few times, but anyhow that's one COVID symptom (also a symptom of allergies and other stuff as well), so went and got a test and now I'm locked down to the garage, yard, cars, and my bedroom until results get back - so, fingers crossed.

Luckily, my bedroom is about the size of my living room, so it doesn't totally suck to be stuck here when not in the garage.

Did the wind noise improve?  If you're in a car by yourself thats quarantine enough if you don't get out until you get back home

Justjim75 said:

Did the wind noise improve?  If you're in a car by yourself thats quarantine enough if you don't get out until you get back home

lol, I just said that to my wife - if the test is positive, for the next week I'll just go on day trips in one of the cars to wherever, and come home to sleep . Bring some food with me, only stop for gas.

Wind noise was much improved when I took it for a drive today up to about 60-65mph. I mean, the big mirrors make noise but the rack now produces no more noise than any other roof rack I've had on cars, so totally tolerable now. 

I washed it today, so here's a shiny shot lol.

Nothing much exciting, but in the interest of documenting everything:

1. For no apparent reason decided to see if my traction boards would fit in the roof storage box. The answer is yes, they do. Almost perfectly. So they may live there (though I guess I won't get that "suburban overland cred" if nobody can see them, lol....)

2. While cleaning up stuff in the garage, found a RamMount phone mount and base. The Raider has no good place to stick a phone when driving, so a couple screws through the dash and now it does. 

In other news, still have heard exactly NOTHING from Lokka in Australia, concerning the lunchbox locker I ordered 5 weeks ago. I have been unable to contact them in any way, which is annoying. On a related note, I opened up some conversation with Aussie Lockers (of New York) who basically make the same thing but stopped making it for the 8" Mitsubishi diff a few years ago. Anyhow, they tentatively said if I can get 15 people together who want one, they'll do a production run. So, that may be a good option if the Lokka doesn't arrive (I've filed a PayPal challenge). 

DIdn't have much to do today, so headed down to Fredricksburg to the pick-and-pull yard, since their online car list not only showed a pair of Porsche 944s and a Sequoia, but also a 1987 2-door Montero.

So trucked 45 miles south and layered up to hike around this huge yard...

And found the Montero. It was in pretty sad shape, total rustbucket.

Disappointingly, it was a 4-cylinder (I was hoping to snag some electrical connectors and a few other V6 things). But, it did have all the original dash switches (except rear wiper, since this was a base model that didn't have one), so I grabbed those. Unexpectedly, it also had a "bouncy" (suspension) seat base on the driver's seat, which is usually on off-road package models (this was not that). So I unbolted that and took it with me too (forgetting how heavy they are and how big this yard is). Other than that, not much else of use on this junker. The Porsches were also totally useless, and didn't find anything I wanted in the Sequoia. But, the seat base was worth the drive, and it was something to do on a borign day.

I don't actually need one of these, since mine already has two, but figure I can sell it. So, got home and wire-wheeled it, disassembled, and repainted it

Oh, yesterday I happened to see this in a local neighborhood. It's a Pajero Mini (imported). They are now 25 years old so are starting to come across the pond a good bit....

How would you rate the Raider as a first car for my son?  A Raider, not yours, if I could get yours I'd keep it for myself, way too nice!  He insists he wants a truck so I'm considering some SUVs (some small SUVs he likes, as long as its not a FWD car based thing like a CRV.  Thats my influence, lol) like Cherokee, Troopers etc.

Justjim75 said:

How would you rate the Raider as a first car for my son?  A Raider, not yours, if I could get yours I'd keep it for myself, way too nice!  He insists he wants a truck so I'm considering some SUVs (some small SUVs he likes, as long as its not a FWD car based thing like a CRV.  Thats my influence, lol) like Cherokee, Troopers etc.

So....as much as I'd love to say "hell yeah, " I probably wouldn't. And here's why:

1. SWB trucks like this have handling quirks and I could see an inexperienced driver putting it on the roof. I'm a very experienced driver and also drive this thing pretty conservatively on the street (compared to my other cars), but there have been a few times when handling-wise it does things where I'm like "whoah, didn't expect that.". The '89 specifically handles better (rear coil springs vs. leaf springs in all prior years, which reportedly have a LOT of handling quirks). 4-door Gen1 Monteros are probably better due to the longer wheelbase (and coil spring rear). 

2. Brakes are pretty borderline unless they're in top condition. And that's for the V6. The 4-cylinders have smaller brakes that are said to be pretty questionable. I honestly don't but much faith in general crash-worthiness of this thing either, frankly. I could be wrong on that, but who knows. 

3. I have fun driving it, but I would not have fun with it as my daily driver. That would get old fast....

Options:

- a LWB Gen 2 would probably be better as a starter vehicle. A bit more modern, more safety stuff, etc.  

- I had a XJ Cherokee. It's great offroad but I found it to be a lousy street vehicle. YMMV.

- Troopers are cool, but I've heard about a lot of issues with them compared to the Monteros, and some parts availability issues (Montero gets around that since it was sold all over the world, so there's still a big parts market). 

My choices for a new driver who wants a "real" truck-based SUV..

- 3rd or 4th-gen 4Runner (whatever is in your price range).....simply great all-around vehicles if they're not rusty. 

- Sleeper pick: Montero Sport. It's not a "real" montero in terms of body, but pretty much the same drivetrain, axles, etc with a bit more civility for general driving. Also still very capable offroad. And they are all over CL and marketplace for cheap. 

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

Disappointingly, it was a 4-cylinder (I was hoping to snag some electrical connectors and a few other V6 things). But, it did have all the original dash switches (except rear wiper, since this was a base model that didn't have one), so I grabbed those.

FWIW, I was checking out the local-ish yard today and they have an 89 Raider.I'm going to try to get there next week IF I can. What do you need? Small shippable stuff. 

L5wolvesf said:

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

Disappointingly, it was a 4-cylinder (I was hoping to snag some electrical connectors and a few other V6 things). But, it did have all the original dash switches (except rear wiper, since this was a base model that didn't have one), so I grabbed those.

FWIW, I was checking out the local-ish yard today and they have an 89 Raider.I'm going to try to get there next week IF I can. What do you need? Small shippable stuff. 

If it has the headlight sprayers, I need the check valve (it's built-in to the "T" where the reservoir hose goes down to the sprayers, so it's kind of behind the bumper area. 

From the engine, in particular I'd like the plug (and some amount of pigtail) for the igniter -basically at the front/top of the engine and also the one near it (the two in the photo below with arrows to them). That's about all I can think of offhand. Oh also,  there are little black tabs that hold the glovebox from falling down when you open it. They should be easy to pop out of the sides of the glovebox if they're still there. That's about it!

Really nice weather today, so figured I'd so some additional work on the rack, basically two little projects.

First, wanted to set up some side flood-lighting because I find side and rear-quarter lighting comes in pretty useful in a numbe of situations. I had some cheap ebay LED amber/yellow work lights so figured I'd just use those since no real reason to get anything expensive for this kind of thing. I initially was going to just bolt them through the rack side bars, but decided insead to just attach some metal tabs under the rack decking, so the lights would sit under the rack rather than outside of it.

So nothing fancy, just cut out four steel tabs, drilled a mount hole, and welded them on.

And attached the lights. 

Night-ish shot. Not the greatest coverage in the world, but they'll do fine for my purposes at the moment. 

While I had the welder out, decided to add some pre-emptive mount brackets on the back of the rack. I'm sure you can figure out what will eventually go here (else, you'll see after Christmas). Anyhow, it's just some steel U-channel cut and welded vertically.

The middle one I added some triangular braces to give it some additional strength, though probably not necessary for what they're going to hold. 

So that's it for now. I have a few other projects to do on some other cars so may be a week or two before anything else new to show. We may get some snow later this week, so if it's worthwhile may go see how this thing does. 

Was a bit bored today so decided to do some woodworking on something I've been thinking about for a while. So for those of you who actually know me, I love the outdoors but don't particularly love actually camping. For the rally racing and stuff like that, there's usually a hotel nearby so I'll just get a room. But here and there I like to do some overnight trips where camping would be the easier option - especially as I start to think about some multi-day adventure trips next year.

So with the Raider being a pretty small vehicle, first off I was thinking about just buying a nice tent and doing it the usual way. Then I thought about maybe making some kind of slide-out sleeping platform using some kind of shelter with the truck's back door open. That seemed like too much complexity to do right. Then got to thinking about how to sleep fully inside the truck and forego any need for a tent, etc. The Raider only has about 4 feet behind the front seats and I'm 6 feet tall so.....

For a moment I thought about re-installing the original tilt-forward passenger seat to get some extra space, but even with that I'd only have about 5 feet and change. But then got to thinking that the seats on these are really easy to remove while leaving th the base in place. 4 bolts, seat is out in 30 seconds. So that seems like the way to go, just take the seat out and stick it outside the truck while car-camping. Taking the seat out gets me about 6.5 ft total length to the dashboard. That's enough, so that's what I'm gonna do.

As you may recall, I already have the gearbox I made earlier. So to get a full-length sleep platform I need to add on to that forward and behind. The forward part I've already cut out and have a plan for how that's going to work, which I'll go into maybe next week. Today I started building the rear platform, which will basically cover the entire rear section behind the gearbox, and be at the same level, with storage underneath. 

Considerations:

1. I have a lot of wood in my shed. The gearbox I built from thick finished plywood, and it's pretty heavy. In my shed I had a good bit of 1/2" standard plywood. Not my favorite thing to work with, but should be sufficient for what I was planning.

2. Needs to be strong enough for two people to sleep on (in theory, though not sure who the second person would be haha), as well as to hold plenty of gear on the trail, strapped down.

3. Maintain access the the storage compartment at the rear right of the truck (stock jack location). I don't keep anything in there right now, but not gonna make storage unaccessable. 

4. Leave allowance for future roll bar (that's coming this winter, too). 

5. Storage underneath. I know some guys like to do the drawer system, but I don't see any need for that myself, and it's just extra weight and cost. I like to pack in the black and yellow Home Depot bins, which you know if you follow my other builds! So the storage area will be appropriate size to hold four of the smaller ones (and/or other stuff like my winch hitch mount, for instance). 

6. The truck's inner wheel wells are the right height to serve as the outer supports, which means less vertical support "legs" needed. 

7. Attached sufficiently that nothing moves around or makes noise when off-road. Part of this will be having everything sit on carpeting, with no direct contact with any hard surfaces. 

So, out with the wood and saw...

Some marking and measuring and cutting, and here's the basic setup (mocked up)

Then cut out some of the openings I need (the one in the center is to access the gearbox latch, in case you're wondering) 

With some bracing, and this is where I am at the moment (also, note cut-out "hatch" for the storage compartment, not yet attached with hinges)

With a "winter storm" going on outside, got the heater fired up in the garage for the first time this year, only to find my propane tank only had enough left for about 15 minutes of warm up lol...mostly because I had to do some wiring on the rally car and wiring with cold fingers sucks...

Also took the Raider for a spin out in the "snow" (if you can call 1" of snow + hours of sleet "snow"). Really just wanted to see how the Grabbers did in slippery conditions, and they seemed to do fine, no drama, etc. But of course morons were skidding off the road everywhere, as always happens in this area with any kind of frozen precip.......

Anyhow, once I got back I continued work on the sleeping platform, mostly just sanding and carpeting the vertical supports (I have more carpet on the way to do the rest). Even though I'm going to carpet it, decided to paint it all black to lock down any possible splinters left after sanding, since this is plywood. Also here you can see the "front" platform that will go over the passenger seat base. I have a mount idea for that, so will post about that once I do it.

Continuing on with the sleep platform. 

So on the back section, decided to use the factory seatbelt lower mounts as the "tie downs" for the assembly, which works out well and means no new holes to drill...

And modified a couple of the factory tie-downs (taken off the Blue Raider) for the back edge of the rack. I'll put a finishing strip on the back edge once it's carpeted, to keep it from getting torn up.

The area under this is just about right to fit four of the Home Depot bins that I like to put stuff in, so that works out well.

On to the front section. So, as noted before, having a front platform requires removing the passenger seat (which is easy to take off the base). With the base still there, it seemed like the easiest way to mount some "legs" for the front end of the platform. Just some c-channel scraps I had sitting around. Cut to length, drill a hole in each, and they bolt up where the seat would usually bolt to the base. 

The wood crossbar is to keep the platform from sliding forward

Because at the back end, it won't actually be attached, it'll just rest on a little ledge:

So here's the basic front and rear platforms in place:

Grabbed an old air mattress and had my daughter test it out. She was not terribly interested....

Still have more stuff to do on this, but this is the basic setup. I don't plan to use an air mattress, but more likely a roll-up foam mattress pad or something. Quite a bit more to add to this little project in the coming weeks, but it's going along as planned, and so far my money spent to do this is exactly ZERO dollars. Everything here is either wood that was out in my shed, scrap metal pieces, or fittings taken off the Blue Raider before I scrapped it. 

Minor side note: before someone comments on the location of the rear stereo speakers...yeah, I didn't mention it but I did move them back about a foot from the original location (you can kinda see the blanking plate I made). This move was needed for another upcoming project. More on that later. 

Also added some bling to the 80s car that sits next to the Raider in the driveway, in case you care :)

That is one giant muffler tip!

95maxrider said:

That is one giant muffler tip!

+50whp yo

Well, today is my birthday, and the girls apparently have changed from drawing racecars on my cards to drawing trucks...

my parents got me a nice Igloo BMX injected cooler, which should keep things colder a lot longer than the old coolers I've been using over the years.  Among other things, my wife got me a 2-gallon Rotopax (water) and a nice first-aid kid. All stuff that I can use for both this Raider and for other things (I like to multi-task my gear lol)

Decided to try to finish up my platform setup today, so cranked up the garage heater and did some carpeting. Front sleeping platform

And I did the rear one, and then added on all my tie-down eyes and an aluminum angle strip on the back to keep the carpet from getting torn up from gear being put in and taken out. 

So here's what it look like in the truck

There's a cutout on the right rear over the OEM jack compartment that's pretty stealth:

So here's with the middle storage compartment open, which turned out to all work pretty cleanly. In this shot you can see the rear section can fit four of the smallest HD (home depot) bins underneath.

HD was sold out of them when I went to get a few more today, but with measurements in hand I actually figured out that the nicer small Plano bins were actually a perfect fit, so I picked up two of those instead. They are literally the exact right size to fit two into each side and slide in snugly, so they won't bang around or anything.

And a gap on one side so I can slide long/narrow stuff in there, like a foam bedroll

On the other side, the plan was to put my hitch-mount winch platform setup. Unfortunately it was about 4" too long, but I decided to just take off the handle at one end, since I can lift it out with the handles anyhow. I left the handle on the other end so i could slide it in and use the handle itself to help secure it in place (along with a ratchet strap from the factory hooks).

With the rear door closed, the handle is basically sandwiched between the door and the rear lip of the platform, so it can't move at all. Like I planned it all along ;)

Also reinstalled my old Bazooka tube but behind the passenger seat this time (since with it behind the driver's seat I can't move it back as far as I like). Why? Because the small speakers in this truck don't have much mid-bass, and I like my music to sound reasonably good. 

So, that's the setup. Pretty happy with how it turned out. Aside from the Plano boxes, this whole project cost me exactly $ZERO, all done with materials I had sitting around the shed and garage. I plan to add a few other small features, but we'll see what I decide to do. Oh, and an old cargo net that came out of a junkyard car at some point in time...And also the new first-aid kit fits nicely in the opening I built into the left-side interior panel, so that works out nicely.