It’s been far too long since I’ve provided any updates with respect to my project cars. The one that gives me the least trouble recently had an issue. Well, technically, the Benz wagon gives me the least issues at the moment but I’m talking about the Mitsubishi Montero right now. While driving on the freeway, I noticed the radio cut out and then turned back on and the dashcam also wasn’t running. Then I looked over at my Voltage gauge and saw it slowly dropping. My alternator was actively dying but I made it to my destination. Then I had a friend come grab me so I could get a fresh battery and use that to get home and park the truck while I waited for a new alternator.
The alternator arrived and I had it installed. But after that, the truck was tougher to start and I now have a check engine light illuminated. The entire time I’ve owned the truck it’s never come on, and it’s a truck that always starts on the first twist of the key. So I had to dive back in and figure this out. This was the first time I used a voltmeter to read an OBD I error code. And that code told me the coolant temp sensor had also given up.
So I ordered one of those, waited a bit for it to arrive, and set out swapping that out. A few drops of coolant on the ground later, and the sensor is in. The truck starts more easily but it still takes a few twists of the key for that very first startup. And then the CEL comes on after a minute of driving. So now I’m in the process of putting 50-100 miles on the truck to see if the code clears itself, or if I still have something going on. I think the wiring into the sensor might be shit, so I may have to clean that up as well. But otherwise, the Montero runs totally fine. I just hate seeing that red light staring me in the face. And I want to get it back to a truck that always fires on the first twist.
I’ve also got Jag stuff to talk about, but I’ll save that for later this week as I’ve got an appointment with the smog folks…
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