[Chris vdw]

I just got my hands on a needle in a haystack, these gen1 pajeros are seamingly impossible to find in south africa, so when i had the chance to trade my gen1 colt for this one i could not pass it up.
The poor old girl has seen 550k km on african soil, so she is in need of alot of love and patience
It came with the original 2.6 carb engine in pieces(block is beyond repair) i only have a few months to get her up and going before the annual Olifants 4x4 weekend
I will be using this thread as a build diary
Btw does anybody know where i could find a driverside headlight suround and indicator housing(it hit a kudu )

[Chris vdw]

My first pick for an engine swap would be the 3.2did from a gen 3 but their prices is completely out of my budget range, aswel i dont want to run a diesel engine on the petrol gear ratios, i have already owned the 6g72 engine in a colt, great engine but unfortunately does not have the potential im looking for, so ive narrowed it down to something that might upset some diehard mitsubishi okes, a toyota 7mgte 3.0 turbo straight 6, they are cheap, there is parts available everywhere and it comes standard with a turbo , and who doesnt like the sound of a turbo straight 6

[Chris vdw]

Does anybody know if the gen 1 colt bonnet is the same? Otherwise i wil just have this bonnet sent to the panelbeater (youd expect a kudu to do more damage, just goes to show how tough these things are

[Chris vdw]

Ok so i have made some progress with the build, i ended up going with a 4.6l v8 from a 2000 ish mustang because it was too cheap to pass up. First thing i did was strip the engine to the long block and presure washed the living hell out of it ( its a ford motor so obviously its been leaking oil forever). Then i tried to testfit it, well initially it wouldnt fit, so i striped out the aircon piping and removed the headers, i got it squeezed in but i was having some clearance issues so ive decided to do a 80mm body lift to open the engine bay up. I have since, pulled the pajero gearbox and pressure washed the living hell out of it too. I have taken the whole setup to an engineering shop to build the adaptor plate setup.

[Chris vdw]

I have now nicnamed it the Mitsustang, just to offend the purists.
Since im waiting for the adaptor plate, i started to strip out the front end.
I the took an angle grinder to the virgin body and made room for my radiator, im going with a big aluminum radiator to avoid heat headaches.
I moddified the top core support so that it is now detachable.

[eddie]

Hey Chris

how did the rest of the build go. Would love to get updates! Such a unique build and hope you smoking the wheels off.

[Chris vdw]

Ok it has been a year or two with little progress, i ended up switching jobs and ended up opening my own workshop which kept me busy.

I have since abandoned the idea of using the 5spd manual box, after the adaptor plate was not working out and wories about the condition of the 500k km gearbox.

Luckily the engine i bought came with the original 4spd auto which wil have to do, now having built an adaptor and machining the correct splines into the transfer input. Now that the auto is adapted to the now rebuild transfer case, the original propshafts and speedometer should work.

I have also since fabricated some chunky engine mounts, i am just finishing up some maintenance on the engine then i will be putting it back together and back in for the final time. I have had to do a bit of cutting, combined with the 70mm body lift( still have to shim and finish installing) means there is alot of room for activitys such as future repairs/ upgrades.

For engine management i am Running a Powermods v1 with a built in Trans controller, this wil give me complete control of the gearbox and wil give me the ability to set the shiftpoints and even manual shift mode. This wil control eveything like the electric fans to the fuel pump ect.