New member. I got a lot of rigs and a lot of questions, well I got a couple of rigs anyway. The one I am working on at the moment is an 87 D50 4wd I pulled the stock 2.6 carb engine out and put the 2.4 fuel injected engine from a 95 MightyMax in. currently I am looking at picking up a 96 Montero 4wd to pull the engine/trans out of and drop in the D50. I would like to put into the truck as much of the Montero into the truck as possible.

So my first question is does anyone know if I can pull the third member/diff out of the montero axle housing set up for coil spring and put it in the axle housing for a montero sport that is set up for leaf springs?

Thanks up front
Mike

The 96 Montero will have a 9.5" ring gear if SR and 3.5L or 9" ring gear if not SR and 3.0L. These differentials will not drop into the pickup rearend that uses an 8" ring gear. You can readily find a 1997-99 Montero Sport with either of the engine sizes and match to the 96 Montero. The Sport rear axle will have disc brakes, too, and the OE leaf springs will give about 1 inch lift over the Max springs. This may require 16" wheels, too, as some of the OE 15" rims do not clear the rear caliper of the Sport axle. Regardless, the Sports often had 4.900 gears that trump the bigger 96 Montero. There are many discussions of the Sport variants that include hybrid LSD/air locker, Torsen locker, and normal old LSD. I hope this wordy answer addressed the meat of your question.

The 2.4L engine is an upgrade from the 2.6L, especially just going carb to FI.

Welcome to The Wire!

Russell
aka rocks in head

welcome to the WIRE. there not alot of action these days on here, but its still the best place(the only place IMHO) to find real dependable info.
I the the 2.4 into D50 project. The EFI is big improvement when going up in the mountains asit adjustto elevation. I like the 2.6 but not the carb.

Well the 96 fell thru. the guy wanted too much for it and there were too many things that weren't right. It had been rolled on its side (which I knew about when I went to look at it),it was the 3.0 and not the 3.5 which i was hoping for, the entire bottom of the engine was soaked in oil/PS fluid or something, AC didn't work which was important to me, it wouldn't come out of 4WD, and it puffed a big cloud of white smoke the first time I stepped on the gas (probably valve guide seals). But he didn't want to come down under $800 and I didn't want to pay much more than $600 especially seeing how I would have had to rebuild and fix a bunch of stuff.

So I might be going to the auction this morning to look at a 2002 montero sport... I am thinking if I pick up anything I plan on moving as much as possible to the truck without too much "custom" work. If that ends up being only engine/trans/transfer case. I was hoping for an older montero sport with leaf spring rear not coil so I could try swapping the montero front and rear axles/diff housing over to get the lower ratio. rear axle I could still do, I would have to have the coil spring perches cut off and leaf spring perches welded on or go to the JY and find an older sport axle housing. The front looks like it might physically bolt into the truck frame with minimal work at least from looking at pictures anyway. CV shafts might be tricky, comparing them on rock auto the outer joint looks to be the same the inner joint is 6 bolt flange truck is 4 bolt and truck OAL is about an inch shorter. As long as the center axle shaft is the same then I can mix and match front CV parts to make them work.

Or... I could just bull the body off the montero frame and throw the truck body on it... the monty is only a 1.8" shorter wheel base...

well that was a bust, or at least today was. found out the auction is open to the public but you need to sign up online to get a member number and the registration process takes at a minimum of 72 hours. And there is no signing up in person at the auction house... So I guess I will go ahead and register now and keep my eyes on the auction list to see if anything else pops up at a later date.

My truck Pearl (avatar) has had the front suspension stripped out. My present intention will be the installation of complete UCA and LCA assemblies from an '02 Sport I parted. I have the leaf spring rear from a 1998 Sport. Time and $$ don't line up for me, need the new brake hoses and other things associated.

This is exactly what I was looking to do. What year is your truck, is ti the 88 in your profile??? I had reservations about whether or not the front a-arms would bolt up to the truck chassis. From looking at them at the junk yard and taking a few measurements they look like they will bolt up but are about an inch longer than the truck arms, have you test fit the monty a-arms on the truck yet??? another area of concern is the front CV's, the monty's CV's are about an inch longer (makes sense with the longer arms). Are you keeping the truck front axle housing and diff???

I know lots of questions..

Thanks
Mike.


P.S. Happy Thanksgiving to all... Have a great and safe weekend...

That inch difference will result in a wider stance, not too much, but should help with the poor turning radius my truck has and accommodate my larger tires by increasing the available steering angle...these are my hopes. If the LCAs do not provide what I need, then I may follow AZ Crew examples and go solid axle.

My hopes as well with the wider stance. I put a set of wheels/tires from a Tacoma on mine and the driver tire drags on the steering box when i turn full right, the extra clearance would be nice. I also thought about doing a SAS as well using jeep front and rear axles. would make doing a big lift easier as well as open up a larger range of gear ratios that could be swapped in.

Just get rid of the Toyota wheels that have too much backspace, aka positive ET. The newer Toyota rims narrow the wheel track and make the SWB unstable, IMO. I liked canyon racing with my Raider, and the Toyota wheels were only scary once.



Find some nice SR rims, like Oso has above.