Good morning,

I am brand new to this forum but have driven only Mitsu's since 1988. My first was an 1988 Mitsubushi LS van in two tone silver with alloy wheels. Sweet vehicle but sold it after we had our first child. The no front end scared me a little even after tooling around West Germany in VW combi buses during my time in the Army 71-74. Second vehicle was a Montero LS 5 speed in Belieze green. and finally a 1996 Montero LS auto, in Sudan Beige. Awesome vehicle that I used in my commercial photography biz for 10 years then handed it off to my 17 year old son last year with 226,000.0 on the clock. We bonded this past winter in the freezing cold replacing upper and lower ball joints, inner and outer tie rods, new sway bar bushings front and rear. new KYB shocks, K&N air filter. Two weeks ago the bloody harmonic balancer crapped out so I had that replaced as well as the water pump, timing belt, idler tensioner and lower timing belt sprocket. Oh, I almost forgot...the alternator, the bearing was on its last leg. The ole boy was running great...Sunday my son headed to the mountains of Virginia with 5 buddies on board for a day of fun hiking Old Rag Mountain. They never made it as he slid on gravel on a mountain road, corrected and managed to keep the rear of the mitsu from going over the mountain but caught a large tree just behind the passenger side wheel. Directly into the A pillar. I am so thankful that none of them were injured (seat belts) and one solid mitsu.
I bought my first Montero after watching them in the T4 class on the Paris Dakar. Truck is totalled but all are safe. Just got home from looking at a 97 Montero 3.5L LS with 143,000.0 on the clock. My original question was as follows: Can I swap any parts from my 96 Montero LS 3.0L 24 valve engine with the 97 3.5L LS Montero engine? My son drove the ole mitsu home from the mountains. He was disqualified on the last leg of the rally but should score some extra points for the creative use of duct tape, bungee cords and the belt, holding his jeans up! I drove the old mitsu yesterday and my son's friends at school spotted me and texted him. He texted me and asked what I was doing so I replied that I was taking an ole friend out for one more "spin," so to speak.

 

the 96 3.0L and the 97 3.5L look similair by appearance but are different. i cant think of anything but mabey the alternator, and a/c compressor. you can look at them closely but what i remeber is that they were pretty different.. greg...