kev

Just a quick update. I have it all torn down and am still in the process of cleaning and inspecting. Because the transmission was out and with my old tired back, I just pulled the engine and put it on the stand. I was expecting to see something glaringly obvious on the HG, but I'm not seeing much. The witness lines from the fire rings and the HG sealant around the oil ports all look good on both the block and the head. I just started cleaning up the block and I think I found something. There appears to be a crack between a coolant port on the one head bolt hole!

Good to hear that you figured it out.

I suspect the rear oil port. pistons are stock. I ordered the Felpro 9116. Never had an issue with them. I contemplated tossing the ajusa from the start but figured I’d try it again. At the time the Felpro was about $50. I bought one this week from one of rockauto warehouse close outs for $17. I’ll keep you all updated. I’m anxious on getting to work but it’s going to have to wait a few days

I'm trying to determine the amount of miles I put on since I last had the radiator cap open. I got it running on March 8, 2021 but never left my driveway until June 29, when I got it road legal. Drove it heavily at that time because the engine in my Ram blew. The car had 98.6K on it when I got it and I have a text message to my buddy when I hit 100k on January 3. I had the radiator cap open on Thanksgiving. So that means I only have around say 600 miles on it since then. Makes sense because I pretty much have only been driving it once or twice a week around town to run errands. 600 miles is only two tanks of gas. I don't drive it hard, especially because the transmission has been slipping. I also went through my photos from the engine build. I have pretty good detailed pictures of both the block and the head including my micrometer in each cylinder, etc. No issues that I can see. Did run across this photo with the ajusa laying on the block. I'll never use this gasket again. Their MLS gasket is incredible but the plain one..not so much. Ok, well all of this is pretty useless until I can get in the garage and pull the head. Unfortunately that probably won't be until at least Friday night due to commitments today and tomorrow. Need to get my mind off of this and get back to work, haha.

Randy, Thank you for the input. Where have you seen cracks in the head? In the cam journals or simply under the cam in the recesses? I'll definitely be going over the block and head with a fine comb. I think your post made my decision to stop on the transmission swap and focus on the engine. My new gaskets will be here by the weekend. Number one focus is to now pull the head. I'm still putting bets on the HG though (and of course am hoping I am correct). When I built this engine and installed it, I pressure tested the coolant system. At 13psi, there was water running down the passenger side of the block. That was with the head properly torqued to spec with stock head bolts. The ajusa gasket itself had torque values on the packaging that were slightly lower than the FSM. After retorquing with 10 fl-lbs more, it held. I have been nervous since because, in my experience, if the HG leaked even the slightest bit, it usually never sealed up. But it does concern me that I had no noticeable oil in the coolant after several months of driving but, all of a sudden, there is a lot of oil in the coolant. Thanks again!

It’s not the ajusa MLS, just the regular ajusa. I have the MLS on my other car and it works great. the head and block are flat. I checked them both on the build. I’ll be checking them again when I pull the head to make sure the higher torque didn’t cause issues

Or just another rubber hose...that is all that it is. I don't know the size of the 83s off the top of my head, you'll have to measure it. The flatsiders have an issue on the opposite side of the OVCP pipe, where it goes into the turbo. It's a double o-ring, if memory serves me correctly, that is prone to leak. Love the 83 though! I normally would say to upgrade it to an intercooled compressor housing and add the intercooler setup from a widebody, but with an 83, I'd keep it as original as possible. I'd love to see a photo of the entire car.

So I'm in the process of an auto to manual conversion on my 88 tsi. I got this car from a close friend last year that was sitting in multiple garages with the engine torn down to the block since 1998. My kids and I fully rebuilt the engine last winter and I've been running it mostly as a daily driver since August and my son will start driving it this summer when he gets his license. I have 1700 miles on it now but the auto trans is old and tired. I have all of the parts for the transmission swap prepped and ready to go. On Sunday, I finally pulled the car into the bay and began the tear-down. I decided that I'd unhook the heater core hoses and the vac booster hose just for safe keeping for the transmission swap so I don't stretch them when the engine angles down a bit when pulling the tranny. But also, I want to pull the heater core and replace that small hidden hose when I have the dash out for the swap. So anyways, I go to drain the radiator and I immediately find that I have oil mixed with the coolant! This is very new because I had a minor coolant leak from one of my hose clamps in the late fall (actually noticed it on Thanksgiving day) that I addressed and topped off the fluid...there was no oil then. There is no coolant in the oil, just oil in the coolant. No overheating issues or driveablity issues. But it's definitely the head gasket. I'm using one of those ajusa stock style gaskets. I had issues with it sealing on assembly and had to up the torque about 10ft-lbs to get it to hold water. This is the second time I tried one of these specific gaskets and had problems. Shame on me for making the same mistake twice but I was given the gasket along with the car and was trying to keep the rebuild on the cheap last winter. So my transmission swap has now evolved into more. I was already planning on doing other work while it is up on stands; heater core hose as mentioned, new seals in the rear differential, new front struts, fix up the interior a bit, etc. But I wasn't planning on doing anything engine related. In all, i guess it's not that bad. I lost count on how many starquest heads I pulled over the years. Although flushing the coolant system is going to be a PIA. Gotta love these cars!

mitsubishiparts.com is a wholesaler that can order from Japan. I talked to them about a month ago for transmission parts. It takes about three months for them to get them but they can access japan stock

Posting this here for now to gain any feedback/comments or suggestions/alternate approaches. It will most likely be moved to the FAQ section soon. Oh, I totally forgot to snap a photo but has anyone ever noticed that the factory shifter is offset about 5 degrees to the right side of the car? Meaning that the shifter bend angle isn't straight front to back. The angular rotation between the shifter handle and the dowel pin holes is about 85 degrees vs a true 90. So it biases the passenger seat. Makes sense for RHD Japanese and European spec cars but never noticed it until this past week having it all torn down and reassembling.

The range is from $500-$20k. I know, real helpful right? It pretty much comes down to condition. It's an 87, which has the highest production numbers, making it the most common. I'm assuming it is an ESiR? What options does it have...pretty much the only ones available on an 87 widebody were a sunroof and leather interior. Any dealer addons like mudflaps, louvers, etc? What is the color combination of the car? Only colors available on an 87 starion were red, black, white, silver, and palmero grey. All great colors on these cars but none that are really rare. Palmero is probably the rarest but I'm not sure I'd consider it the most desired. interior color is important too, only black and burgundy were available this year with black being the more desirable. All these factor into the equation but the condition is #1.

I'll add that if you are using an aftermarket short shifter: Note the last photo on the rebuilt stock shifter. There are two dowel pins in the plate to index the shifter to the transmission. The aluminum plate of the aftermarket short shifter has thru holes to accept the dowels on the factory metal plate. BUT what it doesn't have are the dowels to index the aluminum plate to the transmission. So, it is relying on the bolts to maintain position. Bolt holes typically have up to a 1/16" of slop diametrically. This is too much IMHO. What I did on my build was add two roll pins to the transmission flange when mated to the aluminum plate (I believe they are M6 diameter). This provides the needed indexing but it makes removing the shifter a bit harder because the roll pins are pressing into the dowel holes of both the transmission and the aluminum short shifter block. Obviously you could use dowel pins but if the forward one were to work its way out of the hole, it would fall down into the transmission. I didn't want to take that risk. It doesn't look like I captured any photos of those roll pins and that car has been functional for years now but if I ever pull that shifter, I'll add a few photos to this thread. Just food for thought....

Assembly Method 2: Reassembling the shifter to stock configuration This method is to simply restore the shifter to the OEM configuration. I recently did one of these for one of my cars that is pretty much stock. I actually have a short shifter kit but wanted to retain the stock look and feel on this particular car. I stole the fulcrum and shifter ball bushing from that kit but these are still both available. I noticed many of them currently on ebay, as I write this thread. Fulcrum: MD701605 Shifter ball bushing: MD701577 You will also need the two triangular gaskets for under and over the triangular fulcrum support plate. Plus the shifter mounting gasket to the transmission. These are still available in the Felpro transmission gasket set (TS 80310-1), or make them from scratch with gasket material, or simply use gasket maker RTV. It’s just for keeping in that thick viscosity tranny fluid that is splashed around. Start with the same process as Assembly Method 1 but with the OEM shifter, OEM dowel pin, and new fulcrum. Take a good look at your dowel pin. The end that you hammered on to drive it out will most likely be a bit mushroomed. Keep that end up (you can see it slightly in this photo). I should note that when I disassembled this particular shifter, I hammered the pin hard to get the dowel to ‘break free’ and move. Then I flipped it over and drove it out with the punch on the opposite end. I didn’t want to drive the end that I mushroomed from hammering through the shifter. Again, take your time and try to minimize damage to any the parts. If you do have to damage something, make it a part that is more easily replaceable…for instance the dowel pin vs the actual shifter rod. The dowel pin is pretty easily sourced, if needed. Here is how I installed the pin on my most recent rebuild. It worked pretty swiftly using an old piece of scrap metal shaped like a ‘U’ and my vise. It supported better in this position to get it started, but the fulcrum support plate is in the way to push it home. I pressed it as far as I could and then flipped the shifter over for the remaining. It worked really well. Much easier than hammering. Lube it up good and wiggle around the fulcrum support plate to get the grease fully around the fulcrum I reassembled in a slightly different order on this one…It doesn’t matter. Install the cup, spring, large thin washer, and secure with the C clip Now, sandwich the fulcrum mounting plate between the inner boot restraint plate and rectangular shifting plate with gaskets in between (or RTV). Bolt with the original bolts. MAKE SURE THE BOLT HEADS ARE ON THE BOTTOM, as shown in the photo. The nuts/washers need to be on the top. Grease it up good as well. Slide on the inner boot and restrain with the original or new wire. Slide on the large boot Lay the shift lever internal snap ring on the boot as shown Slide on the THICK washer first Rubber grommet Thin washer Now we are up to replacing that sleeve that we ground on disassembly. In this particular case, my sleeve was in pretty good condition. I decided to simply weld it (trying to focus the weld on the sleeve and not the shaft to be able to permit easier removal if needed some day). But there are many ways to skin a cat here. You could rotate the sleeve and try to re-crimp using a hammer and chisel, replace with a new steel sleeve, or replace with an aluminum sleeve that is easy to crimp. That part is up to you. I have a welder handy, making this a no-brainer to me. Plus it is easy to weld up even a heavily damaged sleeve (such as the one that I showed back in the disassembly steps). Cleaning the sleeve up with a wire brush on my bench grinder, positioning it and welding. After cooling, slide on the rubber insert (I did put a little grease around the weld to keep it from rusting, not shown) Slide on the shift lever and push it down past the thick washer. This isn’t the easiest thing to do, I braced it in the vise to be able to push it down far enough. The rubber insert wants to push back. This is one of those times where you wish you had three hands in order to hold it down properly and be able to install the snap ring with the internal snap ring pliers. Last but not least, put a little bit of grease on the ball and pop on the bushing Don’t forget your gasket when you reinstall back on the transmission.

Assembly Method 1: Using an aftermarket short shifter kit: If you have an aftermarket short shifter kit, I’ll post some photos of the assembly. These are fairly abridged because it is pretty simple. I have a few better photos in Assembly Method 2, which is the same process but with the original shifter rather than the aftermarket shifter rod. First step is to take the aftermarket shifter rod, slide on the fulcrum support plate, fulcrum, and new dowel pin. All parts here are new with exception to the fulcrum support plate, making this pretty easy. Drive or press in your dowel pin until it is about even on both sides (look at the photos in Assembly Method 2 for an example on how I have been pressing these in with my vise). Once the dowel is in and centered, lube it up really good. Wiggle the fulcrum support plate around too good a good grease layer around the fulcrum. I lubricate it after dowel insertion. It’s just easier to drive or press in the dowel when you don’t have slippery grease all over the place. Wipe the grease off of the bottom of the fulcrum support plate and place on the first gasket Mount the original rectangular plate to the underside of the fulcrum support plate. Under that, install the aftermarket shifter riser plate gasket and plate. On the top side, place another triangular gasket over the fulcrum support plate and set the inner boot restraint plate on top. Bolt together with the provided fasteners. The washers and nuts go on the TOP side as shown in the photo. Next, slide on the cup, spring, and large thin washer. Secure with the C clip. Grease it all up well. Slide on the inner boot and restrain it with the wire. For this example, I used new lockwire but you can re-use the original wire. That’s pretty much all there is to it. You can slide the larger boot over the lever on installation. I forgot to show the shifter ball bushing, but it just pops on there. Put a little grease on it as well prior to installation.

This is to redo an older thread pertaining to the manual shifter rebuild that was lost in the data server crash . I’m also adding some new information on a shifter I just rebuilt in the last week. The photos depicted in this thread were from a few different rebuilds over the past few years, so there may be some oddities between them. I tried to use the best photos that I had to depict the process, even if they were not from the same project. The purpose of this thread is to show how to rebuild the manual shifter assembly for our cars (all model years are applicable). I’ll show how to disassemble the stock shift lever assembly (without cutting the shifter itself!) and I’ll show two methods of rebuild: 1. Rebuilding using an aftermarket short shifter kit 2. Rebuilding to stock configuration Disassembly: The starting point is with the shifter assembly unbolted from the transmission and off of the vehicle. If you flip over the shift lever, you will see an internal snap ring on the underside. Remove it with internal snap ring pliers Now carefully pull the shift lever off of the shifter assembly. You may need to rock it back and forth a bit. It doesn’t come off very easy due to the rubber insert inside (shown later). Take your time so that you do as little damage to the rubber insert as possible The lever will be removed and this is what you will see The aftermarket kits tell you to cut the shift lever to disassemble. Even if using an aftermarket short shifter kit, I still don’t like to sacrifice OEM parts. You just never know if and when you will want to go back to the stock configuration. So, let’s remove it the proper way! If you look closely at the sleeve under the rubber insert, you will see a crimp on both sides. You want to grind over these crimps, being careful not to grind into the shifter. The example shown here looks like it went too far but it didn’t. It just broke the surface, for the notches in the shifter lever are pretty deep. From here, you can pull the sleeve off (via a vise) and remove the washer, rubber grommet, thicker washer, internal snap ring, and finally the large rubber boot. Note, for the rebuild here, my sleeve broke it half on removal. I’ve since gotten better at pulling these off in one piece but this was the best photo I had of the parts displayed out on removal. Take your time removing the sleeve, the more you get it off in one piece, the easier it will be to reassemble if you are rebuilding to stock form. Might as well remove the rectangular steel plate on the bottom now. Three bolts/nuts Next is the smaller boot. There is a wire wrapped around the base and twisted. Simply untwist and remove Next, pull the C clip (or some call it an E clip) off of the shifter. Then you can remove the large thin washer, spring, and cup Also, the triangular plate on the bottom is two pieces. The upper piece has the lip for the inner grease boot. Pull this off of the fulcrum support plate. There is a gasket between the two. I didn’t show this in any of my photos. Removing it will give you more access to the dowel pin. This part is the most difficult; removing the dowel pin. Nothing too much to describe, you need to hammer it or press it out. It is a press fit, so it doesn’t come out the easiest. The difficult part is constraining the shifter for pin removal. That fulcrum support plate is always in the way. In my case, my fulcrum was completely disintegrated and gone, which gives you some more freedom. A disintegrated fulcrum is very common and the main reason for performing the rebuild in the first place. I have gotten better at this on each rebuild but I never took the time to make up good brace to punch out the pin. I just fight with the right positioning and make it work. With that pin out, the fulcrum support plate can be removed and you are now fully disassembled. From here, clean all of your parts up really good. I thought I did a good job laying all of the parts out in this photo but it is missing one item…can you spot what it is? (I left it laying on my other bench when I snapped this picture)

My 88 beater has been doing this as well. When it is real cold, it’s fine. It goes to about 2K rom and then drops down. It’s when it’s warmer outside, it surges after firing up but once warm, it idles great. I suspect the ISC as well. Have one out on the bench to swap in but keep putting it off. I haven’t had it surge during driving though. Well with exception to the old automatic transmission surging between gears at times. That‘s my number one focus on this car, a manual conversion.

Wonder if they are still available in Japan. One of the online Mitsubishi wholesalers would know if you sent them a message.

If you run into a jamb, you can always take a trip out my way. I don’t have a torch currently but have the big compressor and gun. Also have a pressurized blaster to clean up the steel crossmembers. Although you may want to just take them to that powdercoater of yours.

The spline looks good. Nice and square on the top. No issues there. the LCA bolt sucks. Ingersoll Rand 2135TI impact gun with the compressor at max psi, 17 cfm. Kept on the trigger until they finally budged. I had one stick. Wouldn’t even free up with heating the hub red hot with an oxy-acet torch. I cut it between the hub and LCA on both sides. Years later, when I got my ingersoll rand impact, I welded the bolt head back on the stud remnant and it came out with ease with the gun. Not sure if it was the gun or the heat from the welding. Most likely a mix of both.

How does the TT spline joint look? Removing the bushings is a pain. I usually try pressing them out but always get frustrated, fire up the torch, and melt them out.

Oh and for the passenger door lock....this typically is the result of some of the black goo that is used for the clear plastic liner under the door panel gets in the locking lever mechanism and gums it up. Pull the door panel, remove the locking lever assembly (the black plastic lever you slide over to lock the doors from the inside), clean it up really good with solvent so that the lever operates with no noticeable friction, and reassemble.

As promised, here are the photos. If you study the wiring diagram, you will see this one connection from a switch simply terminate in the wiper motor block. This switches ground and it is for the intermittent feature and the return to home feature when the wipers are turned off. Thus, it needs to be grounded to chassis. The clip serves this function. It goes around one of the mounting bolts. Because the mounts are on rubber isolators, the motor cannot ground to chassis, hence the reason for this clip, it simply bridges the motor frame to the motor mounting bolt (to chassis). Open it up and clean it off to bare metal I put a thin layer of dielectric grease over it when done to keep it from corroding again (not shown). Also while you are here, pull the three Philips screws off of the drive cover and inspect. This could also be the source of your issue. It needs to be cleaned good if the grease looks horrible inside. Note the dark thick consistency in this photo. Also, this photo was taken AFTER wiping a lot of that old old grease off. When I first opened it, it had so much of that thick gelatinous grease that you couldn't even see the brass rings. Basically if this is all grimed up, it will cause the same issue you have. For this is the 'switch' in the diagram above. The two brass leads on the cover need to contact the brass rings properly. To remedy this, simply clean it up and re-grease with dielectric grease. Make sure your contacts are not all bent. The top one should be contacting the innermost brass sleeve (the one that wraps about 300 degrees around). The lower one will contact that small outer sleeve and for the rest of the time will ride on the plastic. If they are bent, you may have to experiment a little by bending them a similar position as shown in these photos, bolting it back up, and trying it...repeating with a different bend if unsatisfactory.

There is a ground on the wiper motor to chassis. It’s a u shaped sheet metal clip over one of the mounting bolts. If this becomes corroded, the wipers will do exactly what you describe when on intermittent. They also will not return to home position properly on slow or fast speed when turned off if this ground is lost. i can post a picture of the ground but it won’t be until Monday when I can get on my pc

I agree, that is the hardest part. One usually threads in fine but the other always is a pain (and it's usually not consistent per car). If you are replacing the line, start the threads of the fitting in the steering box before you start clamping the line back in.

It’s not difficult. If you are replacing the line anyways, just cut the line and put a socket on it. pull the heat shield that goes in the turbo area. There are a few brackets you have to remove but it comes right out.