Rad Rally (Dodge) Raider (akaMonteroakaPajero) Build

I know you had fun with the rusty bolts because it appears to have required vise grips AND a hammer

lol, yeah they were fun.

So the rear end caps came in today (from Medellin, Colombia...I half expected there to be a brick of cocaine hidden inside the box). The're aftermarket (oddly, stamped "Montero" even though I thought they were sold as Pajero down there). Of all the curious things, all the captive nuts used to mount them to the car, none of them seemed to have the right thread for the standard M10 bolts. Hmm. After trying out some stuff, come to realize they're SAE nuts. WHAT THE berkeley. So had to dig into the hardware box and find some bolts that worked (most of my SAE stuff is long-gone since I sent it all away with the Triumph years ago and have all metric cars now). 

So here's the old corners. Cracked and mashed up from some kind of collision

(sorry for the blurry)

On the driver's side the entire bumper had been bent in from whatever someone hit with it, so I took a ratchet strap and pulled it straight(ish) using the rally car as an anchor.

That done, and the correct bolts located, put the new ends on. I still think these look kind of goofy and I thought about actually getting steel out and making some kind of plated corners, but in the end that seemed like a lot of work with no real upside, so will stick with these. At least they're not cracked and mushed up

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

So the rear end caps came in today (from Medellin, Colombia...I half expected there to be a brick of cocaine hidden inside the box). The're aftermarket (oddly, stamped "Montero" even though I thought they were sold as Pajero down there).

So I was actually just in Colombia. There were tons of these Gen 1's and I do believe all the ones I saw were badged as Monteros. It was crazy seeing some of the old cars there, they just don't seem to rot out like our cars, especially here in the Northeast. This SWB is the only one I managed to get a picture of as we were driving around.

Ah nice, that's interesting :)

Pajero translates to Wanker in the Spanish language.  I think the vehicle is branded Montero in all Spanish speaking countries ie Columbia.  

In reply to John Welsh :

Yeah, I knew the translation, but thought that it was still Pajero in some of the South American countries (perhaps the ones that speak more of the Portugese-derived dialects, IDK). I still think the coolest of the marketing names for this vehicle is the UK version: the Shogun. 

I've been mostly working on the rally car getting ready for a heavy rallycross/rallysprint/stage rally season that is getting started, as well as my Sequoia tow rig (frame rust repair and new headers - both of these a major PITA on a rusty old Toyota (is there any other kinds?)).

Today decided to mess around with the plasma cutter and cut myself some steel tiedown eyes:

And then welded them to the rack in the appropriate positions, because having plenty of tiedown points is always a good thing (yes, I could use the holes in the rack "legs" for that, but wanted some that came up above the level of the rack floor). 

whoops, meant to post this here and not in the rally car thread, so .....repost!

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So since the rallysprint at Rausch Creek was postponed for the weekend, I put the rally car and trailer away and loaded up the Raider and headed to Rausch in it instead. Trucked about 200 miles Friday night to the motel that I already had paid for, so might as well use it, right? Not a lot of action there, hoped I wouldn't be murdered in my sleep or something but turned out to be a nice, clean, and basic motel.

After checking in I jumped in the Raider and cruised another 70 miles on PA's terrible I-78 (bouciest highway I've ever been on) and then some nice country roads to visit Chris and Sara at the ANY% garage. I beat them home by a few minutes so had to scope out the cross-country Caddy project Chris is working on....it's big.

After we hung out for a bit we decided to go to dinner over the river in Jersey via all the awesome gravel roads out that way. I gave Sara the keys to the Raider and we headed off

Chris had to do a few things to the Rally BRZ and left a while after us, but still managed to beat us there (a rally car vs. the Raider in the twisties isn't a fair fight). So we parked downtown in some little scenic place.

After dinner, Sara took the Raider again and I jumped in her codriver seat in the BRZ (a tight fit, since I'm 6" taller than her!). While she took paved roads back, Chris showed me some of his favorite gravel roads for rally testing, at a good clip.....I'm not a great passenger in cars in general, so that was both fun and a bit fearful for me lol

Then we popped out the other side, right behind the Raider. Kind of fun to see it on the road from behind...

After that I headed back to the motel and got some sleep, then headed out in the morning to meet up with Jim (my codriver for those who dont' follow the rally thread) and Andy Thomas, who we rallycross with and who leads a lot of trail ride groups up there. Jim brought his new Tacoma to test it out (bone stock) as we took on some green and blue trails.

Andy flexin

Near the top of the power line run, basically an uphill mile of bowling-ball-size rocks. At the top with a big lip I had to bump the throttle to clear and the truck went damn-near vertical with the Pajero Salute, according to Andy....who didn't get a photo of it. I was looking at the sky until it crested and came back down lol

The Raider doesn't flex much lol

I enjoyed having to take totally different lines from the guys in the long-wheelbase trucks. I can't bridge some of their gaps, but I can weave through obstacles in a way they can't. The rear LSD got some work as well. It will be nice to have a front locker on this one of these days, because with the short wheelbase that will really help it climb these off-angle areas.

Also ran into this nice Trooper (and a Bronco II behind it)

Then we wend down to the water pit area. You may recall this from January when it was all ice-covered and I towed a Subaru out of it. This time, no ice but the water was deep so we did some playing

Some Jeeps came through and joined in

Anyhow, great day to wheel, and of course it didn't rain until we were leaving (which is why the rallysprint was cancelled). Go figure. Raider did well, no issues whatsoever, and I headed 200 miles home afterwards. Incidentally I got 18mpg for the trip, including the wheeling, and did almost exactly 500 miles round trip. 

I did run this time without the front swaybar, which was much more comfortable on off-angle stuff. Then I got soaked in the rain and hail trying to put it back on before we left, which is a bit of a hassle. 

DId a quick inspection today and apart from a couple dents in the skidplate, the only real damage I can find was exactly where I expected it, which was from a large rock submerged in on of the water crossings that I got hung up on with the front of the rear trailing arm mounts. 

So, that's supposed to be round...

I assumed this area was going to take some hits and should have designed some kind of protection for these mounts previously, but now I'll get off my arse and fab something up soon.

In other news, took the rally trailer out for a drive today at near-highway speeds and it towed well, no drama, no bouncing (though this area has really good roads so nowhere to really test that). Anyhow, happy with that.

More damage inspection today, pulled off the gas tank skidplate since I knew I dented it pretty good. To call this thing a skidplate is pretty generous, as it's not very thick or rigid, frankly. I mean, I guess it saved the tank from any direct rock edges, but it took a beating

And did not prevent the gas tank from getting dented

It's flimsy enough that I was able to straighten it out by just stomping on it a bit (and with my hand on the edges). In short, it's pretty worthless, so I'll have to get myself more steel plate and make one myself that can hold up to some hits since I apparently like hitting things with the gas tank...

I also shortened up the rear swaybar endlinks since they have a bad habit of catching on things since they sit pretty low, so I chopped an inch off the sleeved section and got my die out and threaded the bolt an inch more so it would work

So now it's above the level of the trailing arms so should be a bit more out of harm's way

I regret that I have but one like to give for your last 4 posts or so.  Well, that's 4 likes but you know what I mean.

Been a while, not too much going on with the Raider as I've been working on some other projects and running the stage rally season in the e30, which has needed to have some stuff fixed. It gets a bit rough out there....

(no, that jump didn't do any damage - we sheared off the rear shocks later in the rally while sitting in 2nd place in an especially rough area, and then lost a rear spring on the final stage....)

Anyhow, at a rallysprint last weekend I was chatting with a friend/competitor and noted that the new awning for my Sequoia was being held up on a ship someplace offshore for 3 months now. So he says "I have an old Yakima awning on my 4Runner over there I never use.....if you take it off, it's yours." So off it came (I'll send him some good whisky soon). It's a 6 1/2-ish foot length awning, so shorter than the one actually going on the Sequoia. I thought for a moment about just putting it on the opposite side of the big boy by the water tank, but that seemed kind of pointless. So what to do with it? Decided to mock it up on the Raider just for the hell of it. The Raider alreayd has the small awning off the back but if I use this thing for camping or whatever, could be useful to have a larger one. As luck would have it, the rack I built is 6 1/2' long, so figured what the hell. 

The awning came with some fancy aluminum mounts for the nice aftermarket rack Matt had on the 4Runner, which of course aren't made for my tubular rack. After looking at the scrap metal I had around, decided I'd just modify the mounts and attach them via bolts. 

Here's what they look like. The lower groove goes in the back bracket of the awning, and the upper uses bolts. The Yakima awning uses the same rear track as all the other big ones (ARB, Ironman, etc.)

So I modified it with a grinder

So it sits like this:

On the underside I used some angle iron with bolts through under the crossbar to hold it all on (no good pics, but it's not rocket science). So here's how it's mounted with the awning:

I intentionally offset it about an inch from the side of the rack to maintain access to my tiedown ears and so my orange side floods could tilt down to light up under the awning. 

Anyhow, it's on there now. Fits fine, looks ok, may come in handy. Maybe looks a bit poserish to have two awnings on a little truck like this, but whatever....it was 100% free, so not like I dropped cash on something I may or may not use much. 

Been a minute since I've posted anything on this rig, mostly because I've just been driving it and working on other project vehicles. But this winter I plan to do a few things on the Raider as well. In the meantime, one thing that's always annoyed me about it is the overly-soft front suspension, that when combined with the larger tires really exacterbate body lean (especially on-road) and nose-dive under even moderate braking. This truck has the stock torsion bars and the cheap KYP Gas-Adjust shocks I got initially mostly to get it on the road on a budget. 

Still considering what I want to do regarding torsion bars. There are some options ranging from OEM 2nd-generation Montero bars to a few aftermarket options of mostly-unknown rate, so it's mostly going to be based on secondhand opinions (on the internet) rather than any real calculations (the way I prefer to set up suspensions on my other vehicles).

While I decided what to do there, figured I'd take the first step and upgrade shocks. Just the fronts for the time being but the rears soon as well (maybe hold off for some holiday sales or something). To that end, ordered up front Bilstein 4600s, which I've used on many vehicles (though my Sequoia has 5100s), with the hope that the firmer damping will improve the front-end handling/feel a bit. They came in yesterday so naturally I had to install immediately....in the rain (since my garage is housing a pair of e30s at the moment). 

Not a terribly tough job, though the KYBs have a metal "boot" at the top so it takes some prying to make them get to the angle to slide out from between the upper and lower A-arms (since I didn't want to pop the upper balljoint or steering, which would have made the shock easier). In any case, the new ones are in now

Took a quick drive and it feels a bit firmer up front, though not "night and day" by any means. The back is still pretty mushy so we'll see if shocks firm things up a bit back there, eventually. 

Impressed that you could R&R those without popping an A arm loose.  No way could I have done that on my Land Cruiser.  The 6112/5160's are markedly stiffer than the stock stuff, although I did a front spring change too, so I'm sure that's part of it.

docwyte said:

Impressed that you could R&R those without popping an A arm loose.  No way could I have done that on my Land Cruiser.  The 6112/5160's are markedly stiffer than the stock stuff, although I did a front spring change too, so I'm sure that's part of it.

Removal involved a large crowbar and mangling up the old KYBs.

Installation of the new ones I basically compressed them and then held them compressed with a giant zip tie until I had them in place and then I cut it :)

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Giant zip-ties are among my favorite items in the tool box.

Bilstein does have different valving options if you can find the right part#s from a 'universal fit' series of shocks.  A partial table for B8 5125-series was posted on one of the Colorado/Canyon forums.  The person who posted made it sound like the info was a pain to get, and then mounting bushings etc had to be pieced together separately.
I just put a set of 4600-series on my i-350 using using part#s which other people on the forum had said worked ('correct' front, S10 rear).  I definitely would not call the shocks overly stiff, but I am happy enough and the Bilsteins are infinitely better than the previous leaking and unknown-mileage KYBs.

Recon1342 said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Giant zip-ties are among my favorite items in the tool box.

We usually have two packs of them strapped to the roll bar in the rally car for any on-stage fixes :)

I just picked up 5 packs at HF yesterday (and 6 packs of regular ones). 

In reply to Oapfu :

definitely saving that table for future reference. Wonder how someone could get the complete table....hmm. 

Yeah, same idea of the Mk1 Escort Bilstein Gravel shocks/struts I use on my e30 rally car (with RS2000 top hats). Took a good bit of measuring travel and swapping out bushings (in the rear) to make them fit, but a huge improvement over HDs for rally (we went through five sets of HDs over the years on that car but they held up pretty well to rally, actually)

I have Bilsteins on most everything over the past 20 years....2 Sequoias, Porsche, BMWs, WRX, etc. and have always been pleased with them. 

You felt that your shocks were too soft before? I thought my Montero was too harsh/stiff, I changed the shocks and it got a little better but for an off road vehicle I still think the front torsion bars are a little harsh an should be softer. Your build thread was helpful in getting mine back on the road. Right now I've got about 1000 mi on the rebuilt engine, I need to address a leaky axle seal, and at some point look into bleeding the lifters. They tick like mad, so the reman cylinder heads must've used the old lifter design before they were updated with larger openings..

well, it's always that tradeoff between off-road and on-road. Though I *do* wheel mine (as shown in this thread), most of its driving is on-road, so I'm trying to find a good balance. 

Unrelated: for pretty much the whole time I've owned it, the Raider has had an intermittent no-start condition. Like it won't start when you turn the key (pretty much nothing happens except a click) and then maybe a minute later it'll start just fine. I've replaced the ignition switch (didn't fix it). I checked all the wiring (didn't fix anything). I've removed and rebuilt the starter (didn't fix it). Today I was messing around and found the main starter wiring harness and mini-fuse block from the Blue Raider. Looking at it, I noticed the attachment to the battery post was different. So I cleaned that one up good and swapped it out with the kind-of-"bodged-together" setup that was in the truck. I also found a spare e30 terminal sitting around so I replaced the "metal-band-style" negative cable clamp (which I was never able to get quite tight enough to be "really secure") with the e30 one, freshly crimped to the negative cable. 

Not sure which one did it, but the truck started up multiple times with more "oomph" than I'm used to. So I guess even though I messed with the terminals multiple times before (cleaning, tightenting, etc), maybe somehow I wasn't getting a good/solid ground and/or power to the starter. Time will tell if this fixed the issue, but seems promising. 

*Figures* that I had finally settled on the starter going bad, so I ordered a new one last night off RockAuto, and now maybe I fixed the issues. So, I'll just keep that one as a spare since it was pretty cheap and would be expensive to ship back. And if this acts up again, I'll have a replacement. 

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Very nice, could you specify where you ordered the front bilsteins and the part number if you have it?  I thought they were not available for the Gen1 SWB w/ torsion bar?

We only have rear bilstein yellows on ours (I believe they were originally for a montero sport, will have to check), it was a HUGE difference in ride control.  Still stiff, but handles compression and rebound miles better than the KYBs did.

In reply to engiekev :

Shock surplus. They list the part for the 1989-1991 But I don't see why they would not work for earlier ones as well. I don't think there's any difference between SWB and LWB for front shocks 

For a while I've been considering getting some spacers. This thing is short in length and tall in height and I'd like a slightly wider stance (for stability and admittedly for looks). I happened to come across a good deal on a full set of nice 1.5" spacers so figured what the hell. Anyhow, they came in today and appear to be good quality. 

So went ahead and installed, of course (blue loctite)

Anyhow, the wider stance makes the truck feel more stable and less tippy when cornering. And looks decent. I still may want to get some small fender flares down the line, but we'll see.

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

For a while I've been considering getting some spacers. This thing is short in length and tall in height and I'd like a slightly wider stance (for stability and admittedly for looks). I happened to come across a good deal on a full set of nice 1.5" spacers so figured what the hell. Anyhow, they came in today and appear to be good quality. 

 

 

So went ahead and installed, of course (blue loctite)

 

 

Anyhow, the wider stance makes the truck feel more stable and less tippy when cornering. And looks decent. I still may want to get some small fender flares down the line, but we'll see.

 

 

 

In my opinion, just the right amount of poke