1992 Mitsubishi Strada (quad cab turbo diesel pickup)

[PajEvo]

Bought this truck in Japan in December of 2016, for import to Canada. It is not destined for big tires, lifts, or rock crawling. It will be  a mountain bike hauler, camping base of operations, tow rig, and Daily Driver. This "build" will thus be more about keeping it running, with a few upgrades here and there.

Attached pics are how it looked in Japan, before I bought it. As you can see, it needed work, inside and out.

The good:
-104k kilometers (~60k miles)
-Full Service history
-Almost no body damage (one ding in rear roll pan, rare in a JDM pickup, that usually has all kinds of dents)
-factory-blinged with fogs, light bar, brush bar, rollbar, rear tube bumper
-factory flares, dual batteries, no EGR
-glow system that hadn't been tampered with
-three pedals (all the K34T diesel pickups were manual trans)
-nice alloys, and new all terrain tires

The bad:
-a color I'm not fond of
-peeling clear coat on hood and roof
-rough interior, with crumbling seats, missing gauge pod, etc etc.

This thread will follow this old truck's journey into the new millenium, with a few mods along the way...

[PajEvo]

As haggard as the clearcoat looked, I could live with it for a while. I also found out after I picked it up, that the timing belt had been done in the last couple of years, and only had 20k kms on it. Bonus. But the interior? Wow. Never seen a vehicle that had been so well looked after mechanically, yet so far gone inside.

Seats were done for, as I showed in the pics above. An old GPS unit hung from loose screws where the dual pod was supposed to reside. The steering wheel, even though it was swapped to an old Lancer Evo MOMO wheel, had medical tape covering a hole in the leather. Carpets and mats were dirty, and it had been smoked in.

Here's the dash when I drove it home...

[PajEvo]

Yanked the seats, and shampooed the carpets, mats, headliner... pretty much every surface that could be touched was cleaned. Also yanked the stereo, GPS, and a few aux cupholders (I don't think I really needed six places to put coffee)

[PajEvo]

Replaced the torn up seats with some Pajero Evolution Recaro's that I scored in the deal of the century, from a buddy who pulled them for me in a junkyard in the Northwest Territories of Canada, and brought down for me... (matching seats in both rigs is a good thing, right?)

Retrofitted a gen1 Montero triple gauge to fill the void on the dash.

Also replaced the aging head unit with an android double DIN (after I cut the cross piece on the dash garnish). Also cracked the dash trim getting it out, but it was a putrid greyish brown anyways, so I swapped it to a black piece (off ebay). Had to modify it for RHD (heater controls are oriented differently) but you can't really tell...

Finally, I cut the back upper part of the lower pocket to squeeze my CB in. No antenna yet, but at least it has a place.

[Crumb]

 Makes me wish I had a quad cab!

[Hellvector]

Such a sweet find! And that triple gauge cover looks real good! 

[PajEvo]

Thanks guys!

Added a Softride tailgate pad. Not sure that's counted as a mod? Maybe a strap-on? 

[PajEvo]

Update: I now have 20k kms on this rig since I got it, and have done not much mechanically beyond oil changes. I did replace the coolant, stat, rad hoses, and accessory belts. I pulled the cover to do the timing belt, but it was pristine. Further investigation showed it had been done around 80k kms, a few years ago. So I'm gonna wait a little bit longer before doing it again.

I did have a nasty sound coming into the cab for a week or so in March. My stethoscopic jack handle eventually traced it to a failing tensioner pulley on the AC track. It was still cold so I pulled the belt, ordered up a bearing, and begged use of a large press to do the R&R. Ahhhh .... cool and quiet again.

[ThePug]

I'm loving this thread! I also have a 92 Strada same colour and configuration. I also live in Canada as well so pretty cool. Anyways keep up the good work as I'm just getting it ready for paint as the peeling clear and colour is not my fav so I'll change it

[PajEvo]

Thanks guys. Pug, did you pick yours up recently or did you have it up for sale for a while? I'm pretty sure I saw it advertised. There aren't many around...

Russ... LOL. They're getting their hats soon!

[PajEvo]

Okay, time to address the peeling clear coat on the hood. Been driving me crazy all winter, so warmer weather is the time to do it...

Hood when shipped:

Looked even worse in person.

Started by sanding it down, hoping to just respray the clear. No dice. The base was badly damaged. So the sanding went deeper, until we had bare metal and some primer...

[PajEvo]

And deeper still...

This was followed by primer, and then the base began again. Color matched rattle cans actually matched very well, and I used three of them, just on the hood. Followed up with two cans of clear. Its much better, but there is a fair amount of orange peel, so when the paint cures a bit, I plan to polish it and hopefully bring a little shine to the forefront? We'll see.

Saved some masking time by moving the rigs out of the garage, and putting the hood on the freshly wetted down garage floor (on cardboard).

[ThePug]

Looks much better! How the clear on the roof? Mine is the same as the hood will have to be sanded completely down

[PajEvo]

Roof is crazed all over. But it's also completely covered by my RTT and roof basket so I'm not seeing nor thinking about it yet.

So... was yours the one up for sale that needed a head/gasket? When did you get it?

[ThePug]

It is that truck I picked it up from Devin a few months back, I've been trying to duplicate the heating issue he had with no success. He gave me a great deal and I love the look of them aside from the colour lol but that's easily fixed