Hey all,

New owner of a '95 Montero LS 3.0 with 202k on the clock. Got her cheap, she'd been sitting for 2 months, and the crank pulley bolt had come out. Had it towed to the house, and after doing a little research found out there'd been a recall on the bolt. Took it to the dealership down the road and they replaced/fixed it for free.

Noticed once I got it home and running that it had an occasional miss at idle that became more pronouced under load around 40mph. I've run about 3/4 a tank of gas though it with Lucas fuel system cleaner, but that's all so far.

It starts easily, and idles steady. Accelerates fine (minus the miss) and doesn't appear fuel starved. My first guess was that maybe it was a coil issue. I've ordered a single new coil, with the idea that I'd swap it in for all three and see if I'm able to eliminate the problem.

Am I barking up the wrong tree completely? Should have the part tomorrow to test. I'm guessing other culprits could be crank shaft sensor, ignition module, wires/plugs, or fuel injectors.

Thanks and sorry if I've asked or said anything dumb!

Justin

 

I have a 1995 Montero 3.0 with 237,000 miles. Love the truck. Had a dead miss on #6. Spark plug badly fouled. Zero compression. Removed head without doing a wet compression test. Big mistake. Turned out rings were washed down from injector firing without spark. Replaced questionable ex valves. Replaced timing belt, pullies, water pump and tensioner. They were overdue. Replaced plugs and plug wires. Wet compression test after the motor was back together produced 200lb per. Always do a wet test. Motor started right up and ran smooth for a day or so. Then it seemed to lose power. Checked cat-clear. Checked fuel filter-clear. Checked resistance on coils-8.6 ohms on all when they were cold. The problem happens under load, so even though the coils ohmed out ok, I ordered 3 coils just the same. Should be here by this weekend. When I had the injectors out I looked at them closely and saw no reason to suspect anything was wrong. I also tried a different computer with no change. 1995 was the first year for OBD II but I've never had a check engine light on-except when I disconnected the MAF sensor-it went out when I hooked it back up. My scanner won't commo with the ECM. Coils??? I'll let you know.

 

I put new coils and plug wires on over labor day weekend and have driven the Montero 100 or so miles without a miss. I think the original problem was the coil for #6 was bad causing the plug to foul out which washed down the cylinder which caused zero compression which led me to pulling the head. When I put it back together I did change the plugs and plug wires but I failed to notice that the plug wire ends that went into the coils were wrong, which, along with the bad original coil, caused even more missing problems. Lesson learned. I hope. Gave the girl a good bath, painted the silver trim around the bottom body work and bumpers with bed liner paint and hope to get some more miles out of her. There are never dumb questions. Just dumb people who don't ask them. Myself included.