No need for Montero Sport front diff.

[MudRaider]

Bringing this over from the black hole of information known as Facebook so it's not lost. One of the members of Mitsubishi Monteros USA, Charlie North posted about locking out your vacuum actuated front differential. Here's what he said; "For everyone that has swapped to manual hubs up front and want to do a CAD delete. There is no need to swap in a Sport differential/axle setup. To much money and work to just make sure the front is engaged. What I have been doing for decades is to completely remove the vacuum components. The vacuum unit has a rollpin inside the rubber boot, At a hardware store look in their spring selection for one that will hold the shaft out and get a washer and cotter pin as well, had I planned to write this I would have the dimensions for you. What you are doing is installing a spring to hold the axle engagement shaft pulled out. Grease it up for rust prevention Install a rubber boot with an end cap, done." I'm going to try and bring more of this information as I can so it's not lost.

 

[Old Colt]

Thank you for bringing this tidbit of mine over here, and in turn luring me here as well.
For the many that do not know me I am a fairly dedicated Mitsu fan. I was very active on the Wire, Great Place, Great people.

I have been driving Mitsues since 1974 when I bought my first 1972 Dodge Colt, which I still drive today.
Hence my online name being "Old Colt" on many forums.

I bought my first Montero at an auction in 1988, this being a 1987 automatic. The cylinder head was off it, everything looked sweet.
I reinstalled the head and fired it up, all seemed fine, went for my first drive and it had a nasty metallic sounding clunking.
Upon removing the engine I discovered the center of the flex plate was broken out.
Put a fresh one in and went for a drive, fine going downhill and level but it lost power big time going up hill, weird.
I can not say I was impressed. So I soon found an 86 Starion, I already owned a few and had just bought a new one which I still have as well.
I swapped the turbo engine in the Monti and went out for the first drove, It still lost power going uphill.

It turned out to have a bad fuseable link from the battery.

So I did one of the very first Turbo Monti builds because if a $2 part.