Preventative Maintenance - PM List

If this is going into a wiki article or something let me know. I've been into these cars and the 3/S community since 1993-1994 (starnet/dragnet lists before this board) and have read many, many thousands of posts and threads. I have a fairly good "feel" for what breaks and when just from reading people's complaints/problems over the years.

However, it will take me quite a bit of time to do a full write up and I'm sure even more time defending some of my points (just search on the last set of posts I wrote in the 60k maintence thread and you'll see what I mean). If this is going "somewhere" other than a thread that will be forgotten about 2 weeks later (like a wiki article) let me know, I'll be happy to spend the time this once. Don't want to sound cranky but I've been at this platform for 14 years - feel like a broken record sometimes when it comes to giving advice!

(As an idea what I mean- Replace crank pulley before 90-100k miles as they like to seperate (usually around the 100k mark). My pet theory is that it's most prominent on cars with automatic climate control that likes to cycle on the AC clutch on/off, or people who leave the snowflake button on 'orange' on 91-95 cars without auto CC. My other theory is they both removed the "oranage" mode in 96 for ODBII reasons as well as the seperating crank pulley's. Mitsu also revised the crank pulley sometime in 96-99 to a better version. (I've changed both my cars and noticed the new ones I got where different) On an unrelated note, they also revised the door weather stripping to a better material that doesn't peel...I'm full of little tid bits of 3/S info...)


Ted

My little additions...

Fuel Lines, Ive noticed on ALOT of 3s cars the plastic covers on the fuel lines are starting to crack, and rot, as are the fuel lines... This can lead to a catastrophic problem.

Rubber hoses to Turbos, and Throttle body. I've seen this put 3s's on the side of the road a few times now.

Radiator Cap. Ive seen quite a few of these on the sides of failure, or close to it. Failure can lead to loss of coolant, as well as in ability to raise pressure on coolant system lowering coolants boiling point.

Radiator Fan Switches on 1st Gens. Ive seen a few cars now whos passanger side fan does not kick on at low speed, only on high. These switches I guess can over time fail. Seen it on two cars now.

Knock Sensor. Suggested replacing @ 120K, Have experianced cars that knock non stop causing a CEL, as well as sensors that are OVERLY sensitive. One case was a car that would knock in high revs no matter what according to datalogger, removed sensor, goo had leaked out of it, replaced and performance was back to usual false knock gone.

Oil Cooler Thermostat. Gut(Hotter states) or Replace (colder cliamates). Have seen a hand full of these that are inoperable causing a bypass of the oil cooler, leading to very fast oil break down.

Engine Compression Test. I cannot stress this enough, if you start having severe issues with oil in the intake tubes, dip sticks blowing off, oil caps seeping heavily, oil caps BLOWING OFF, do a compression check, if #s are within 10% of each other, and above 140, check PCV valve, otherwise start looking into doing a leak down test, as well as checking your valve stem seals.

Lifters. This was mentioned, but one tip was not. SOAK them in diesel oil or ATF, or VERY thin weight motor oil, Sitting on the bottom of hte lifter submursed in fluid. I would say atleast 24 hours to allow air bubbles to bleed. do not allow oil to drain out of lifters prior to install. I have seen a handful of cars throw the rocker arms off on fresh start due to no oil in the lifters.

Power Antenna. After I would say a good 10 years or so, I would remove the mast from the motor, remove the motor assembly, disassemble, use a good parts cleaner that does not eat plastic, get all the old lithium grease out, and replace it to ensure a smoothly operating power antenna, may also want to grease the antenna mast itself.

Water Drain Hoses. Those 2 hoses that hang down behind the rear wheels? YUP blow em out, this can cause water to leak into the hatch possibly if they clog. Glass Top cars have ports on the front of the glass top area as well if I remember correctly, It could be in the back part around the top.

Windsheild Washer pump motors. The tops sometimes break off causing blown fuses whenever activated, or they fail to work at all. Cheap and easy fix, goto the junk yard the same pump is used on so many cars that it isnt even funny. one trip to the junk yard for me yeilded about 20 of these things...

Rear Active Aero Spoiler. Remove spoiler from car, remove screws from mid and side sections, pay attention to parts orientation. Parts clean out the metal tubes, regrease. Helps with making the spoiler move smoothly, and not jam. Also use some white lithium grease on the while slide parts that move the actual spoiler up and down.

Engine Accessory Belt Idler and Tensioner Pulleys. These tend to fail in the 70-120K range noticed by a squeak upon cold startup. Check belt tension first and adjust if needed. If noise doesnt go away, replace em.

Stock Harmonic Dampner (crank pulley). This thing likes to seperate after 70-120K as well, usually causing the outside of the dampner to push the power steering belt into the tbelt cover, ruining accessory, and PS belts, as well as possibly destroying timing belt and cover. I'd inspect every 30K atleast, and replace at 120K for DAMN sure.

Keep water away from 91-92 Cam/Crank angle sensors. Its on the intake cam of the rear head. This thing gets water inside of it, and you WILL be stranded. Has happened to me personally twice now. Took my current one apart, and RTV'd the ever living CRAP out of it, hopefully it wont happen again. This is a problem for those who LOVE to wash their engines alot.

Starter Electrical "Click, Click, Click, Start" Fix. Cut connector on 12awg wire by itself that runs down to the starter, wire a relay in place drawing power from the battery directly, switched by relay to starter, use stock starter trigger wire to trigger relay. This 99% of the time fixes the multi click start issue. Replacing the ignition switch, and starter, and 4awg cables along with 12awg trigger cable did nothing on my car, relay was only fix.

Transfercase Bolts Torque. Make sure the tcase bolts are torqued down to spec that hold the housings all together, as well as the side cover. I have had a catastrophic TCase failure due to bolts not being torqued to spec after recall was performed. Use of BLUE thread locker is highly recomended.

Front Suspension & Frame Torque. IF you've had your trans out, axles, engine, anything of that nature, make sure you torque all these bolts down to spec. use NEW cotter pins on castle nuts on both ball joint, and tie rod end. This can lead to further catastrophic failure.

Front Upper Strut Isolaters/Mounts. Ive seen this on a hand ful of cars now as well in the 120K+ Range, the rubber that holds the upper bearing in place that your strut is bolted to starts to tear. Monitor these things, if it starts to crack, replace ASAP. A strut going through the hood, fender, or any where else other than where its supposed to is a BAD thing.

CV Axle Boots. Under the car? Check all of these damn things out. if you catch one when it rips, its a very cheap and simple fix. Failure to replace boot and regrease upon failure leads to needing whole axle rebuilt at a much higher cost.

Front & Rear Steering Rack Boots & seals. Check to make sure they are not full of fluid. If they are filling up with fluid, its time to rebuild the rack, or replace it. if they are broken, but dry, just replace them.

Ball Joints & Tie Rods. Grab the bottom of the wheel Jerk it around, if the play comes from a drivers to passanger side direction, replace Ball joints, if it goes from a front to rear motion with slack, tie rod ends.

Silicone Hoses. If you are using Silicone hoses for vacuum hoses, TRY to not use them for the hoses that run from upper charge pipe, to boost solenoid/controller, to wastegates. Try to find a metal T to use as well. Silicone hoses are prone to cracking and breaking once gas, oil, and other fluids/chemicals come into contact with it. If you insist on using something other than rubber, use Viton. For pretty much everything else, if your using silicone vac hoses/couplers, check the hoses much more often for damage.

Coolant Levels. With engine cold, Occasionally make sure the coolant system is full, take cap off, start engine, let it rise to operating temperature, wait til fans start to cycle, make sure coolant neck is full before capping. If your loosing alot of coolant for no reason inspect radiator cap, and hoses.

Stock Rubber Turbo Intake T hose. Check where it rubs against thermostat housing for holes. Unmetered air = bad.

Pressure Test. Always check for boost leaks any time you re assemble the IC Pipes after working on the engine. This will ensure no leaks, and no weird stumbling issues.

1991-1993 ECU's and ALL ECS Control Modules. If you've never replaced the capacitors in these modules, do it now. Once the caps leak out, damage will be done to the boards, and surrounding components. The ECS module does it just as fast as the ECU does. ECU caps affect 1991-1993, ECS caps affect ALL ECS equiped cars. When the ECS module craps out, it can cause weird hesitation/stumbling problems.

Turbo Oil Feed Copper Washers. You mentioned replacing the front, dont forget that the rear has two on it as well where it attaches to the Y peice for the idiot light.

Store your car for extended periods of time? Open underhood fuse box, Yellow plastic peice in center, with a black rail on each side of it. This is labeled as IOD Elimination. IOD = Ignition Off Draw. By pulling this up anything that would normally have power when the key is off will no longer have power. Helps save the charge on the Battery. Will disable stock security, suggest only doing if your car is stored in a secure facility.

Brake Fluid. If its black, for christ sake, bleed that crap out PLEASE... I can't count the number of 3s's ive seen in which the brake fluid resembles that of grease... This is not healthy for the normal function of your brakes, master cyl, lines, OR ABS!!!

Brake Lines. There was a recall on these due to being TOO SHORT, make sure your car had this done. Any time you have the wheel off, Inspect these for wear and tear. This is a CRITICAL item.

Clutch Slave Cyl Line. Another failure prone part, especially if you've had bad motor mounts.

Brake & Clutch Vac Hoses. I think EVERY 3s ive ever touched, these hoses have been harder than metal and break instantly when trying to work with them. Alternative for this system is to do the following. 1/8NPT Plug, Remove Nipple near throttle body, and plug hole(can also use for greddy, AEM, etc map sensors). Leave clutch nipple in place, Get a rubber hose & metal T that will fit the nipples to both clutch and brake boosters, and plenum. Remove Valve from one of the stock hoses, boil new hose in hot water(use gloves) press into hose, make sure valve allows engine to suck air, but not blow. Run this from plenum to T, then T straight to clutch and brake boosters. Remove metal hardline on firewall for clutch, it is not needed. This gets the brake booster hose away from the rear turbos heat, and also allows for easy removal of plenum.

Oil Pressure Switch, Gauge, and Power Steering Pressure Harness & connector. Another common part baked on every 3s. Replacement plugs from mitsu are not avail. Use a 4 pin trailer harness, or 3 pin, or you can find any other multi pin connector to replace this one with. This can cause false readings of oil pressure with stock sending unit.

E-Brake Floor Plate. The area the ebrake handle is bolted to is real thin sheet metal, ive seen more than a handful of cars where this has had to be re welded, or modified in some way due to pulling the ebrake right out of the damn floor. MAke sure if you weld, or cut this area to coat it with a corosion control paint/sealer.

PTU & Ignition Connectors. Ive noticed these like to corrode with just about everything else on the 3s under the hood, but these can get VERY problematic. Use a sharp knife, sand paper, dremel sized wire wheel, ice pick, etc... Get the corosion off, can help with spark blow out, and stumbling.

Is your Cyl 3 & 6 coil pack burning up? Car running on 4 cyl? Remove plastic loom and tape going from PTU 3 wire connector, to Ignition Coils 4 wire connector. You will find that a small gauge black w/ white stripe wire goes back down the harness, and a blue w/ yellow stripe 12-14awg wire comes back up the harness, but for the other two ignition channels they go straight to the coil from the ptu. Yup you guessed it, cut that damn thing and splice back together. Those two wires go to the blue connector at the passanger strut tower, they are used for engine rpm detection for diagnostics, atleast it says in the manual. Its fairly easy to diagnose ignition problems by just pulling the wire while the car is running. If you get shocked, it works! But no joke, That short recently left duTTch's car inoperable, and burned up 3 coils in the process of trying to eliminate different parts as being a culprit. This can also be a possible cause to spark blow out due to the resistance of such a long wire, as well as corosion of the wire leading to poor charging of cyl 3 & 6 coil.

Dome light not work on one door? Lights flicker with one door open? Headlights not shut off on your 1992+ 3s? Factory Alarm doesnt trigger? Take door pin switch out of frame, loosen screw on back, and spread the little fang looking teeth out some so they will touch the frame of the switch. may also need to be cleaned due to corrosion on copper.

Drive Shaft Inspection. Check carrier bearings, anything more than 1/2 inch of play, id start getting suspect about. DS problems start to occur @ 90-120K. Also check U joint on the front of the shaft that goes to the Tcase, if this is worn, replace shaft, or take shaft to a DS shop to have dodge truck u joint/yoke welded in place. This personally stranded my ass when i destroyed the U joint and bent the yoke.

Turbocharger Oil Supply Lines. 120K? New turbos? Replace them, they arent expensive. If one of these small lines cloggs, bye bye turbo. Run carb cleaner through oil return lines to clean them out if engine ever spins bearings, or if they are off the car for any reason. Make sure to blow them out as well.

Stock Alarm go off for no reason? Passanger side headlight bucket, see that switch with the rubber gromment on top? Bend it up a bit.

Door panels off? Go ahead and use white lithium grease on the lock mechinisms/linkages. Prevents locks from sticking in frigid temps.

Window Regulator Inspection. Older the cars get, the more this becomes an issue, the white plastic peice on top likes to crack allowing the window to stick or fall down. May also want to grease this if the door panel is ever off.

Rear windsheild wiper blowing fuses? Replace the switch, plastic tab likes to break allowing a short to occur when activated.

Syncros starting to grind? Throw some syncromesh, syncromax, or other synthetic gear oil in the trans. This will give you some more time.

Transmission Output Shaft inspection, Transfercase Input Spool Inspection. Got the Tcase off? check the splines for wear/twisting, replace if needed. Use grease on these as well to control corrosion.

Intercooler Punctures. Make sure periodically that you check the IC's visually for any holes that may be caused by large rocks.

Radiator Inlet Inspection. Check this every time before you go drive, especially with a 99 front end. News paper, and trash likes to get in the large openings blocking the A/C Condensor leading to overheating issues.

Fuel Tank Corrosion Inspection. Take passanger rear tool tray out of trunk, remove gray access cover, spray WD40 all over this bitch to help stop corrosion of the bolts that hold the sending unit to the tank.

Rear E-Brake Pads. Check these any time your changing your rear brakes out, esp if you use the ebrake for anything other than parking. Higher milage vehicles will need to pay attention to this as well, atleast inspect every few brake pad changes or if the ebrake starts to not hold very well. May need to adjust linkage on ebrake handle. Accessible by removing center console and tightening cable with 10MM wrench.

Steering Wheel Clock Spring. If your steering wheel lights flicker when turning, horn doesnt work when turning steering wheel, cruise control malfunctions randomly, SRS light is on, Id advise replacing this. This is a saftey critical item. Service only with power removed from the car.

Cruise Control Vac Hose. This likes to melt on TT cars often causing Cruise to not function, run new hose from vac pump under throttle cable junction box, to throttle actuator behind tbody on firewall.

Fuel Injector Seals. I advise at minimum every 60K miles replace the rubber orings on both the top and bottom of the injectors. This can turn into a fuel leak and a fire, or a nasty boost leak.

Fuel Rail O-Rings. These are on the crossover tube, Stock FPR, and Feed line. Replace every 60-120K as a prevenative measure. Any time any of the mentioned items are removed from rail, replace oring as well.

Throttle cable tension. If you've had the throttle cable loose, make sure you set the tension correctly. it should be taught. Touching it with the finger does not move the throttle plate with a light touch, but any significant pressure, throttle should move.

Idle Air Control Servo. 120K+ failure prone part. Stealth316 has testing proceedure.

Ignition Coils & PTU. 120K+ failure prone part. Stealth316 has testing proceedures. Can result in spark blow out, as well other performance issues.

Altenator Charge Wire Corrosion. large gauge wire at altenator, can have corrosion on it. Do not loose plastic spacer between connector and altenator, fire will occur if this spacer is not put back in place. This can be a source of poor charging/voltage issues.

Vehicle power/Battery Charge Wire. White 12awg wire going from fuse box to battery, check for corrosion. Can lead to charging/voltage problems.

Oxygen Sensors. Poor gas milage? Overly rich exhaust? o2's tend to start becoming innacureate in the 50-70K range, if you have 120K on them go ahead and yank em out and replace em. your gas milage and spark plugs will thank you.

Coolant. Replace it atleast every 15-30K, or every other year at minimum. Use 50/50 mix of gycol/water, or DISTILLED WATER w/ Water Wetter. Avoid tap water at all cost. If coolant smells burned, appears to be a wrong color, contains rust, or is very murky, replace it. Tap water will lead to corrosion of cooling components due to minerals and other contaminants.

Rear Differential, Transmission, Transfercase Oil. Replace every 15K, or more often if the car is beaten on alot. Ive seen alot of cars with very nasty rear end fluid, this is not healthy for the VCU. When draining Transmission fluid, watch it drain, make sure no black goop comes out, if so VCU has shit the bed. Check Transfercase Drain Plug for excessive metal on the plug.


I'm done for now. These are all issues ive personally encountered in my past 5 years around the 3s. Id recomend checking some of the items in which are easily inspected to be done atleast every 15K, Some of the items I have posted should be checked more often, but it varies due to driving conditions, cliamte, driving habbits. Some of the more complex items to be checked if a problem arrises, or if doing serious maint of the vehicle. If buying a 3s, or doing your itnitial inspection on your car, id go over probally everything posted in this thread that you feel comfertable doing. Alot of personal experiances are going to be posted and emphasized on. I obviously left out quite a bit as most of it was already mentioned in this thread. If there is something you are not sure you want to attempt, or doubt your ability to do correctly, please seek help from a knowledgable 3si member, or mechanic. I am in no way liable if you screw up, or information posted is not 100% to detail. Not responsible for damages in any way . Sorry had to include the disclaimer.

Holy crap, good list of the "non-obvious" stuff that isn't mentioned on here too often!! You saved me a *ton* of typing as I was planning on doing a write-up in the next couple of days. About 75% of that stuff I knew about, however there is a good 25% that I wasn't aware of at all (I'd never heard of a clock spring going?).

One thing though - those 130k items you mentioned, I'd change that to 100k. 2 out of 9 local cars have had the crank pulley seperate between 100-110k miles. Both times we got to it in time but if it happens at high speed/rpm - BOOM. Also, I've seen those tensioners (the outside non-tbelt ones) go as early as 70k. That is, we removed them (one was making a noise) and checked them and they felt "rough". Probably could have gone a bit longer but definately not 120k.

Once I'm feeling better from this cold/flu I'll hopefully chime in here myself. I'd quickly like to add: rebuild alternator (usually goes before 100k for a lot of people), clean (or run new wire a la grounding kit) battery terminals and all "main" ground points in car (this is why ground kits help, after 10 years most points have significant resistance), lube all rubber moldings and weather stripping/seals once a year *MINIMUM* with silicon graphite spray, ECS computer likes to go wacky after about a decade (even the upgraded newer-type capacitors mitsu used 94+ don't help, my 94's was a bit screwy, I ended up just unplugging it), change radiator hoses (all rubber hoses under hood suspect after 10-15+ years, but these are especially important), gas filter every 60k (minimum) for sure, etc etc.

I'll do a proper writeup later, feeling a bit woozy again.

Ted

Yup ive seen alot of the items i posted up fail alot sooner.... most of the 130K+ stuff should jsut be replaced at 120K, or 90K. I was just assuming some of the crap I have seen was excessive wear/freak accidents. After all the crap ive been through with my car, ive replaced everything on the car within the past 60K, and im getting ready to replace some stuff AGAIN when i put the new motor in. I cant stress enough to do a compression test though on all 6 before performing ANY engine maint. Dont do like I did, drop 2K+ into your 120K just to be fighting piston ring issues until you finally pop it

Clock springs tend to wear depending on city vs highway driving. As always, if your car is in a wreck and the SRS system deploys, and you replace the SRS system, REPLACE THE CLOCK SPRING. The connector likes to melt once the bag deploys.


Another addendum;
For the love of god, USE OEM PARTS. The only exception I can see to this rule would be using a Kevlar Timing Belt.

Use OEM Oil/Water Pumps, Tensioners, Pulleys, etc. Don't risk your motor cause your a cheap ass. You either pay now, or pay later.

SRS Light On? Turn the Ignition key from ACC, to IGN, and then back off 10 Times, this will reset errors for low battery, and such, but if light remains, there is a serious malfunction.

Replacing SRS control Module? Push the metal clip retaining pin peice in VERY far before trying to undo the lock to unplug connectors. You may want to remove the top of the control module to make sure you disengauge the metal retaining pin from the locks.