Isuzu Owners Maintenance and Repair

paisan

I hope you don't go off-roading with them mounted so low. It could cause problems when hitting an obstacle.

-mike

cknott

If you look below the front bumper, you will see an air inlet between the factory fog light mounting locations. The coolers are mounted directly behind this inlet with the bottom of the coolers resting on the flat plastic surface that creates the horizontal support for this air inlet.
There is enough steel support surrounding this area to provide adequate protection.

If I am in a position off-road that causes these coolers to get damaged:
1) I was in the wrong vehicle.
2) Will have alot of other damage.
3) Will likely have two deployed airbags.

Mike, I'll take some pictures and email them to you. It will not be until next week though.

paisan

Wow that would be some fast off-roading! Apparently airbags won't deploy below 30mph on recent systems. I'll have to take a look at the truck tonight and see where you mean, of course the front bumper is expendible in off-road situations, just a reason to get a nice metal ECB or ARB one

-mike

dielectric7bb

I like the plastic ones on the Trooper. They take a beating really well. My buddy was driving his in Mexico (spring break) and nailed the side of some ladies car. He was going pretty slow (5-10MPH) and just scrapped his bumper all along it. Granted he decided to do this directly in front of the local police station (Yikes). Well the whole side of the ladies car was torn up really really well and he just had some red paint on the bumper (Grey unpainted plastic) that came off pretty easily .

I want the Calmini winch bumper myself but the ARB and ECB ones are nice.

paisan

They are either great or horrible service. Basically if you get your item in 5 days w/o problems you are golden, but if you have any kind of problems, their customer service skills are lacking. One guy waited like 6 months for an ARB bumper, that never came. Other similar stories as well. I had some bad experiences with em too.

-mike

dielectric7bb

Sorry to hear that. I e-mailed them once and they responded two weeks later saying to call them. I said forget about it since I know I don't have the funds right now (poor college kid The only things I want from them are there front bumper and there 3"lift kit. The rest I'm looking at getting from independent4x (lockers and hubs). Did you see that the teraflx (at least on independent) is making some 5.38 diffy gears for pre-'97 models?

Shopping can be fun after all Anyways this should probably be in aftermarket/accessories Ohhhhwell

paisan

www.darlingtonoffroad.com he makes some bumpers like independent4x.

-mike

teacherjim

I can not get real Isuzu oil filters in my town, and I have run out of stockpiled filters. I have heard people say that St. Charles Isuzu is a good place to order things. Would someone please post their phone number or Email address so I can order
some filters. Thanks. My 2001 Trooper has 18,000
miles now and I think I want to switch to Mobil 1,
is 5w30 what I want to use?. Can I go 5-6000 miles
between changes? Thanks. 18,000 miles and no major problems to talk about!

bluedevils

$100 a pair or $100 for 4?

beer47

$100 for all 4. It was something like $47 for the front and 54 for the back.

paisan

That's darn good for OEM brakes.

-mike

bluedevils

especially considering that most people think the Isuzu pads are superior to other pads, at least when they're on Isuzu vehicles.

fiveharpers

http://www.stcharlesauto.com/

armtdm

Suggest using the Mobil 1 oil filter as well as the Mobil 1 oil. More expensive but I feel it does a better job

ogo1

hey cknott,Iwould like to know the what brand of oil cooler and where you purchased it from.

islander21

I haven't been here in a while, because, well, I haven't had a problem with my 2000 Trooper until now. The vehicle, which has 21K miles on it, has been pulling to the right quite a bit so I took it in for an alignment (not to the dealer). I was told by the techs that the right front camber is at -.5 degrees (it limit on the negative side) and the front left camber is at .5 degrees (yes, its limit to the positive side). They say they have no way of adjusting cross camber, which is at .9 and out of spec by .4, because the camber bolt can only be adjusted on one axis not the two required to correct this problem. They say the only solution is to install an aftermarket cross-camber kit and then adjust the cross-camber, otherwise my steering will always pull to the right.

I find it hard to believe Isuzu did such a crappy job designing their suspension system. Are the techs at Brand X Tires correct, or are they pulling my leg to collect $100 extra dollars in parts and labor? Whats the real story, how do you adjust cross-camber on a 2000 2WD Trooper?

sbcooke

I had problems with mine too. The caster was off, if I remember correctly. 3 trips to the same place could not fix it. Once to a qualified shop an I haven't had a problem with the alignment since. They installed a shim in the suspension and aligned it.

I suggest doing some research and finding a qualified shop. My shop told me that the truck is very specific and heavy, most dealerships and shops are not equipped to align trucks. Where are you located?

islander21

sbcooke, I'm in Orlando.

breakor

I second the find another shop approach.

It sounds like double talk to me. Camber is adjusted by installing/removing shims at least on my 1999 4wd. There is no "camber bolt". Cross camber is simply the difference between the two sides. Thus, to adjust cross camber you simply adjust the camber on each side. In other words, if they adjust the camber on each side closer to the spec the cross camber will by definition get closer to spec.

Now whether they meant to say that they charge extra to adjust both cambers could be a question. But $100 seems awful steep to me. My alignment shop didn't charge that much to do a very good job. Also, they said nothing about Troopers being harder than other vehicles.

paisan

It's hard to find a good alignment shop. On a lot of uni-body's you can't adjust the camber, I had this problem with my XT6. But on a regular truck it should be adjustable.

-mike

islander21

I was looking around and found this nice .pdf document on the Trooper's suspension system:

http://www.4x4club.ru/pdf/isuzu4.pdf

On page 14 I see the camber shims you guys are talking about. I'll call the shop and slyly ask them how many shims they added or subtracted to each side in their attempt to adjust camber. I'm certain they'll say "Huh?" So my next step is to find these camber and caster shims. Aside from the dealers, where else can I get these guys from? The typical Pep Boys carry these parts? I'm about to find out....

breakor

Your not going to try and do your own alignment are you? If so, what equipment are you going to use to verify your settings to within 1/2 a degree?

Alternatively, you seem to be implying that you are going to buy shims and provide them to the shop. If the shop tried to snow you they already have the shims. Or, they clearly don't know how to set the camber and you will not only have to provide them the shims you will have to teach them how to do an alignment.

Any such approach seems very problematic to me.

Call around and find a good shop. Make sure they will warranty their work at least for a week or two to your complete satisfaction. Such a shop will no doubt have all the shims they need.

sbcooke

Well, I can recommend a shop in PA if you are coming through...I wouldn't race off with the shim solution until you get a better shop to look at it. You might want to stop in a local garage3 and ask the mechanics what their opinion is, off the record. I wouldn't expect a dealer to necessarily have the right equipment, most of them are franchises. My ex-dealer here in PA outsourced all the Troopers to another place because they weren't equipped to properly adjust them.

sbcooke

Great link on suspension. I checked out the site, and they only had 3 manuals on the trooper. I would like to find more technical manuals online like that!

paisan

I'll be linking those sites on Isuzu-suvs.com

-mike

ilit

Mine pulled to the right when it was brand new; but was fixed by an Isuzu dealership. It's still good since. I believe this is a known problem to Isuzu.

islander21

Breakor,

Have no plans on doing the alignment myself, since I already paid them to do it. I just want to see if they knew what needed to be done (ie, add/delete shims). If they say 'yes', my next question is: then what's the real problem? If they say 'no, had no clue about the shims', then I can:

a) Ask for my money back since the alignment was not properly done - vehicle still pulls to the right.
b) If they refuse to do a), tell them where to get the shims at and have them re-do it. The proof should be in the computer alignment printout with the specs on it. And yes, I would insist on them telling me the number of shims added/removed from each side. I'm about to get under the car and visually inspect/count those suckers.

Either way, I'm more than likely taking my business elsewhere.

boxtrooper

IMHO:
The Mobil 1 oil filter does take out finer particles but it has no more capacity than a regular filter, while it traps more therefore it will fill up quicker and trip the bypass mode.
..
I have the 1995.5 3.2L engine that will tell you when the oil is dirty by a lifter ticking noise. I never heard this noise until I towed a 4000# trailer a 600 of the last 4000 miles on the Mobil1 Oil and Mobil1 filter. I believe that the Mobil1 filter went into bypass mode and sent a load a crud into the lifters starting the noise.
..
If you can cross reference to a taller Mobil1 filter with greater caopacity, then go for it.
..
I will stick with the larger capacity Purolator Pure One PL24458 which by the dimensions seems to have 150% of the capacity of the genuine Isuzu filter. I have good results with it.

breakor

Your experience is sort of how we found our present alignment shop.

We went to a chain tire shop. The tech started to try and dazzle me with nonsense. I left and called the regional headquarters, turns out it was listed in the local phone book. After explaining my experiences the manager offered to personally make sure I got a good alignment and take care of the guy who fed me a line.

Not wanting to take my car back to that shop (and get heaven only knows what payback) I took the car to another location of the same chain and was very pleased with that and all subsequent work.

Just thought I would pass this along in case you might have some a similar other shop of the same chain option.

As to telling them where to get the shims, that shouldn't be necessary. My limited understanding is that these shims are fairly universal. Again IMO if you have to tell them how to do the job then you are clearly in the wrong shop. Kind of like finding a doctor where you have to tell him where to get suture material so that he can sew you up after an operation.

armtdm

The Amsoil SDF 35 is significantly larger then the Moibl 1 and OEM as well. The regular Amsoil is the SDF 20 but the 35 fits, a little tight but it fits and works fine

However, to really know if the Mobil 1 filter was full you needed to cut it open and check it out. I really doubt it at 4000 miles. I regularly run my Pure One and Amsoil filters 7500 plus and they are still pretty clean. But, synthetic just runs cleaner anyway once the dino leftovers are done away with.

islander21

Well, I went back to the shop armed with page 14 of the .pdf and my 'before' and 'after' computer alignment printouts. The manager said he'd call the master tech to talk the issue over. I casually asked them how long it took to do an alignment on a Trooper and he said about 45 minutes. Then I pointed out the start time on the 'before' printout and the start time on the 'after' printout, which were 10 minutes apart. He said not a word. Then I asked him if everything else other than camber was adjusted. He said, "Should have been." Then I asked him to look at the diagram and I let him have it. Since they admitted that the "other guy" who did the alignment did't know what he was doing and had no clue about the shims I raised my voice so that the other customers could hear: "So you are telling me that the caster was adjusted as well, but the caster adjusting shims are right behind the camber adjusting shims and slide on the same bolts you admitted you did not touch. You guys don't have a clue about what you are doing or you are lying to me, which one is it?"

I had the car taken care of in 20 minutes while I watched. Seems the "master tech" had a clue, the "other guy" was nowhere to be seen. No extra $100 camber kit needed, no specs on the limits, no problem. They profusely apologized on my way out and told me that they would take care of the "other guy's" lack of training or laziness either way.

BTW, they took a photocopy of page 14 of the .pdf, hehehehehe....

gpm5

Pretty typical. Workers or sometimes shops that don't know what they're doing or don't want to take the time to do it right. You have to do exactly the type of thing you did. Glad to see that you were able to get it aligned properly.
At a tire shop, I had to take my new Toyo tires back a second time to get the balancing done properly, and argue with them that they should be smooth a 70 mph.

zutrooper

Can you provide additional links to 4x4club? TIA

islander21

Trooper Rear suspension

http://www.4x4club.ru/pdf/isuzu5.pdf

zutrooper

Thanks Islander. I think someon mentioned three links. Is there another one?

islander21

There is but if I show it to you, then I have to kill you.

Just kidding. I could not find the third one.

gpm5

My '99 trooper was burning about 1 qt dino for every 1500 miles. I changed 3500 miles ago to Mobile 1. The first 1500 miles required less than a qt. In the second 2000 miles, I'm only about 1/3 qt low. It may well be with continued M1 usage, the oil consumption will be about a qt every 4000-5000.

bluedevils

On our 98 Trooper, I have noticed no difference in oil consumption between conventional, synthetic blend, and full synthetic oil.

I switched to Mobil 1 about 10,000 miles ago and consumption is no different than with conventional oil -- 1 quart every 2,000-2,800 miles (I am keeping track but not being extremely precise).

cknott

Ogo 1,

I apologize for the late response. I was on vacation. I purchased the oil cooler from Summit Car Racing. It is made by Deraney (P/N 15502- I think). I do not have the information in the office. I paid $76.45 out the door. I did a substantial amount of research before I selected this cooler. I wanted a thermostat and I needed the cooler to be within a specific size range.

Kirstie_H

Our topic for Wednesday, March 13: Stump the Technicians!
Join us with your maintenance & repair questions this Wednesday from 5-7pm PT/8-10pm ET. Some of our contributors from the Maintenance & Repair board will be waiting to hear your problems, and making Herculean efforts to solve them.

kirstie_h
Roving Host
Edmunds.com

sbcooke

Went to Jiffy Lube in Upstate NY. An OK experience overall, but also annoying. I told them I only wanted an oil change, nothing else, and repeated nothing else. I didn't realize they would do this, but they opened up the differentials, and transmission to check fill levels, they also adjusted my tire pressure. Ugh. I keep mine at 36-37 and drove out with 29.5. At least they had good fresh donuts out and decent coffee.

breakor

If so, it is possible they could have messed up when they checked your tranny level. The correct level check has to be made with the engine on. If the engine is off then pulling the upper check plug will let out about 1 qt. of ATF, at least in my 1999 Trooper.

Days of being 1 quart low (out of 9, IIRC) is probably no problem. However with no scheduled service interval you could easily drive around for years in this condition and eventually do some real damage.

sbcooke

Good point. I am going to call them tomorrow and ask them about how they check, and if they remember my truck this weekend. I just did 300 plus miles yesterday. There was is no noise (other than the usual clunk 2-1 downshift) while shifting...that is usually the only way I know how to tell if your level is low? Thanks, I am glad you mentioned it. I specifically asked them not to do anything else, other than change the oil. I have to get to the dealer sometime in the next month, so I will have them check too. That does it, from now on, I am doing my own oil changes.

cknott

For those who are interested, the actual brand of the oil cooler I installed was a Derale P/N 15502 oil cooler purchased through Summit Car Racing. Great cooler except....long post ahead....

In the Trooper main forum I discussed the high winds along I-81 through Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. I also discussed the moving shopping cart containment structures that were being blown across the parking lot. Well, why was I at Wal-mart on my vacation after midnight? Thank you Sam Walton!!!

I installed the engine oil cooler and Transmission oil cooler on Saturday, March 2nd. I wanted to drive a couple of days to make sure there were no leaks and that everything was o.k. We left on Tuesday morning, March 5th, to head to Maine. Great trip, no problems, over 18mpg. We left Maine on Saturday, March 9th, to head back to Georgia. Again, we had no problems, everything cool. We stopped in Hagerstown, Maryland to possibly spend the night and to refuel.

I notice an "oil is burning" smell coming through the HVAC ducts in the Trooper as I am pulling into the gas station. I take a look under the hood and I see oil leaking between the oil filter and the adapter for the oil cooler. At first I thought it was a defective seal on the oil filter (Puralator PL24458). I went into the gas station, purchased oil to top off the engine, and inquired as to the closest Walmart.

Once at Wal-mart, I purchased two Fram PH3593A oil filters, oil filter wrench, funnel, towels, garbage bags. I removed the purolator filter and replaced it with the Fram filter. My wife then cranked the engine while I watched the oil filter/sandwich adapter joint. Instantly, oil went everywhere. Please keep in mind that I brought vacationing clothes, not clothes to work under a Trooper dripping oil from every location on a wet parking lot surface. Therefore, to save my "good" clothes. I stripped down to a t-shirt which I ruined, but didn't care. Wearing only a t-shirt wet with oil, in Maryland at 12:30 at night, with 50 MPH winds, on a wet parking lot surface, is COOOLLLLDDDD!

By this time, I needed to think a little bit. I was tired (I had been driving all day), I was cold, and I wasn't in Georgia. I could have been a little irritable. I had to ask, What is wrong with the system?

I didn't feel like trying to completely diagnose the oil cooler, adapter, it's plumbing, and potential failure modes. I decided to remove the adapter and go back to the original filter mounting scenario. Well, I needed a large socket to get the oil cooler adapter off of the filter mount. I went back into Walmart, wet oily t-shirt and all (If there are red necks in Maryland, I believe I qualified that night), and purchased a socket set and Metric sockets. With all these sockets, I was able to find a socket that wasn't the exact size, but close enough to get the adapter off.

I reinstalled the Fram filter in the original location and everything was o.k. No leaks, oil topped off. We found a hotel, took a long warm shower to remove the layers of oil in my hair, and went to sleep.

Yesterday, after work, I was able to pull the Trooper into my shop, no wind, every tool imaginable available, and investigated the situation.

It turns out that the sandwich adapter has a mating surface for the square ring seal of the oil filter to mate with. However, this mating surface also has material missing from this mating surface that allows room for the thermostat to be mounted up into the adapter. If you attempt to use an oil filter such as a Purolator PL24458, L24458, L14459, or Fram PH3593A with this sandwich adapter you will leak. The outer diameter of the square ring seal used on these filters is not large enough to cover the material missing from the sandwich adapter for the thermostat. The only reason I was able to travel as far as I did is because the Purolator Pure one series of filters such as the PL24458 uses a larger square ring (Cross-section)than conventional filters such as the Puralator L24458, L14459, and Fram PH3593A. As a result, it took some time for the seal to squeeze out and allow a breach.

I was able to go to my local Advance Auto parts and look at the specifications for oil filters made by Purolator. I discovered that Puralator oil filters PL14619(Pure One) and L14619(Conventional) have the same flow rate (3 GPM), include anti-drain back valves, and have the same blow by pressure (8-10 psi) as the factory recommended filter. This filter also has a larger square ring seal diameter that will completely seal the mating surface. This filter is also the largest Purolator filter listed in their book that will work on my Trooper (1999). It is much larger than the PL24458 (L24458). I would recommend this filter whether or not you have an oil cooler installed. I installed a PL14619 filter on my Trooper with the cooler adapter reinstalled and everything appears to be 100%.

I will be writing Derale a letter because this is a major design flaw in their adapter. They even recommmend using the factory recommended filter which will not even work. I took the adapter out, Fram PH3593A filter, and Purolator PL14619 filter and studied the sealing and mating surfaces at the kitchen table. After careful examination, I concluded that the sandwich adapter cannot successfully work with a standard filter. As some people are aware, the M20x1.5 filter threads, and filter size listed for our vehicle is extremely common for Japanese automobiles. Therefore, I am shocked that others have not had this problem before me. Obviously if not caught, this could cause major problems.

Conclusion: I would recommend buying the Derale cooler, but just know that you MUST change the filter to an equivalent filter to the Puralator PL14619 (L14619). If you buy an oil cooler from anybody, please pull the seal out of the oil filter and lay it on the sandwich adapter included with the oil cooler kit that you buy. Verify that there is a complete mating surface for the seal around the seal's circumference.

I am happy now.

paisan

I read somewhere that the troopers had oil and ATF coolers built into the radiators, is this true?

-mike

paisan

I usually keep an old jacket in the back of my truck and at least a socket set and set of open ended wrenches in the back just in case. I got used to it owning a '74 olds 98, '83 ramcharger and a ford Escort. Having them and not needing them is good, Not having them and needing them sux!

-mike

sdavito

Mike -

As far as I know, all automatics in all makes & models, have the ATF cooled by the radiator.

David

paisan

Yes, but I think the radiator has a separate core for the ATF maybe? Its very fuzzy but someone said it was one unit, but the ATF was cooled by separate chamber. I could be wrong though.

-mike

cknott

I have been around automatics for a long time. The "cooler" as used by the factory does not cool the fluid. If you follow the transmission lines you will see that the transmission fluid comes to the bottom of the radiator. A small tube (1/2" DIAM) carries the transmission fluid through the bottom of the radiator (this is not visible because it is inside the radiaotor bottom tank). According to my local Isuzu mechanic (Gary), the "A/T Temp light" in the dash will not come on until the fluid temperature hits 250 deg F. The radiator fluid is typically 190 - 210 deg F. Ideal running temperature for transmission fluid is between 160 -180 deg F. Gary indicated that the transmission fluid passing through the tube in the radiator does not provide "cooling" due to the low temperature difference between the fluids and the relatively low heat transfer rate. This tube is primarily used to heat the fluid in cold climate conditions (not a concern for me) and to prevent the fluid from reaching excessively high temperatures.

There is a local radiator shop that has a few radiators cut apart so that you can see the internals. All the radiators that were cut apart simply had the tube in one of the tanks of the radiator. None of the tubes had any type of fins attached to them to allow for more efficient heat transfer between the radiator fluid and the transmission fluid.

There is also a local transmission shop that has graphs and data on transmission fluid and coolers. There is also a lot of information on the web discussing transmission fluid and transmission coolers.

Note: Please look at the size of the separate transmission coolers used on Ford Powerstroke automatics and GM 3/4 & 1 ton trucks with automatics.

paisan

I bring it up is because there are no towing packages for the trooper from dealers, which usually is an easy $ maker for them. Were the radiators that you saw Isuzu ones, specifically Trooper ones? I would probably go with what you Isuzu Mechanic said though. I may put one on mine eventually, for now though it seems to be ok, only after my 40K flush will I see if there was any darkening of the fluid.

-mike