89 Montero Build: "From Compton to the Con"

Justice R

Adventurer
Ive been wheeling Monteros in one form or another since 1993 when I bought an 86 after a tour in Somalia. Anyways, my latest has been this 89 that I bought out in Phoenix a couple years ago after returning from my second tour in Iraq. I had been wanting to build a short wheel base for a while and my last two had been Long wheel base models. Also, I wanted the 3.0 V6 and and auto trans which is a rather difficult combo to find in the short wheelbase models, with 89 and 90 being the only years of this combo available. I drove my 95 out to AZ with the wife and picked it up. It was in in sorry shape, but I was able to limp it home to So Cal.

Heres a pic from the parking lot, at this point I had already removed some type of wierd roof contraption as well as a cheesey light bar. Note the crome bling stuff and the double blade windshield wipers:wings:

monteronew.jpg


Hey ou think it might be a 4x4??:drool:

Although it was in AZ the truck had cali plates and when I went to the DMV to register it it was still valid in the CA system and was reviously registered in Compton CA.

Took about 3 days with a heat gun to remove all the stickers. There were about 5 differnt pinstripes running the length of the truck.

montero2.jpg


changed out the hairdryer for a real heat gun, a few beers...progress..

monteroprogress3.jpg


prgressshot2.jpg


On that last one you can see I took off the unpredictable auto hubs and swapped on a set of superwinch manuals that I picked up online from summit.
 
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Justice R

Adventurer
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I needed more clearance so I went down the street to Americas tires and got a new set of shoes..cost me more than the truck:sombrero:

prgrss33%27s.jpg


15x8 AR Mojaves with 33x12.50 MTR's.

These fit nicely with a little tweak of the tortion bars and little trim of the plastic bumper end caps.
 

Justice R

Adventurer
next mod

This was by far the most bang for my buck mod I got done. I saw this 96 Montero rear end on Ebay, so I placed a minimum bid of 100 bucks on it. I did not think I would win, but I was the only bidder and scored.

With this bolt in swap I gained the following:

-Larger axles, diff, and ring gear (from 9.0 to 9.5" ring gear)
-Misu air locker
-Rear disk brakes
-beefier trailing arms

Not bad for 100 Bucks eh?? Also the seller gave me the 96 Coils springs for free. I swapped those in for about a 2" boost in the rear.

Old diff out:

rearendout.jpg


New Diff:

rearends.jpg


Diff in truck:

diffin.jpg


diffdone.jpg
 
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Justice R

Adventurer
next mod

Since I upgraded the rear brakes to disks I decided to upgrade the fronts to 96 units as well. The gen 2's have Dual piston calipers and a larger shoe.

Stock:
brake1.jpg


here you can see the difference in hardware. 89 stuff on top, 96 stuff on the bottom:

brake2.jpg


Complete:
brake3.jpg
 

michaels

Explorer
wow that's actually a sexy truck with all the stickers removed. the paint looks great underneath.

does it have IFS? if so, are there plans for a solid axle swap?
 

Justice R

Adventurer
next

No plans for a SAS as of yet but I have not ruled it out. The IFS on these rigs is fairly stout (for IFS). Seems to be able to handle up to 35's without much issue. I have some part to beef it up a bit, but I have not yet gotten to that.

removed the T case and installed the 2.85 gears from Marks in AU.
tcase.jpg


101_1661.JPG-thumb_140_105.jpg
 

Martinjmpr

Wiffleball Batter
Justice: What kind of shape is the engine in? Has the valve-guide replacement been done or does it burn oil? I had mine done at ~ 139k.
 

PajEvo

JDM Journeys
Love that truck Justice. I'd never seen the homecoming pics before! :wings: Looks a LOT better now!

Wait'll you see what he did with the bumpers!
 

Justice R

Adventurer
next

After contemplating I decided on a 2" body lift from 4Crawler to gain a little clearance under the rockers and the ability to move up to 35's in the future. With this I need to move the bumpers up. I decided to scrap the stock bumpers and build a set. I'm a beginner welder, but I think they came out decent. I started with the rear.

2x2 inch square tube..

Naked:
rearofswb.jpg


Tacked:
rearbumper1.jpg


welded:

SWBbumperside.jpg


Cut off the excess stock bumper brackets and trimmed the ends of the frame.
swbbumper1.jpg


swbbumper3.jpg


Mounts to the frame using the factory holes

swbbumper6.jpg


swbbumper5.jpg


swbbumper4.jpg


Sliders and front bumper next..
 

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