Scrubworks Fleet: 1993 Mitsubishi Pajero 2.5 SWB

[Scrubworks]

Picture the scene. It's 2003. The young Scrubworks is being brought home from school in mother's W124. As we round a particularly obscured corner on a country road near our village, my mum has to suddenly brake and swerve to the left, to avoid one of the local farmers coming the opposite way round the bend, too fast, and mostly on the wrong side of the road. Because he actually made it round the corner, and isn't on his roof in the adjacent field, he's clearly not driving a Land Rover. No, he's driving one of these:

A mk2 Mitsubishi Pajero, usually with an unironic "Buy British" sticker on the back window. It was a rare drive around rural Buckinghamshire/Berkshire in the 2000s that I didn't see at least one of these things, or one of their Japanese competitors, usually the Hilux or Isuzu Trooper/Bighorn. Farmers and other agri-yobs at the time bought them by the boatload, literally, and it's really not hard to see why. Why spend an eye-watering sum on a new Defender that's built like an allotment shed, or put up with an old Series that can barely reach the national speed limit, when for much less cash you could have a barely-used JDM jeep or truck just off the boat? The Hilux may be the last word in durability, and the Trooper/Bighorn may have been the better value for money, but the Pajero had the style, the most toys, and the most configeration options. It's also the only one which doesn't have a interior that looks like it was made out of melted-down photocopiers. Seeing them every day as a kid cemented their image into that part of my brain which, every time I see or remember the Pajero, jumps to life and nags me to buy one.

 

Like all good car purchases, this was bought from an eBay auction, sight unseen, with only a couple of days notice. I'd been looking on there for a tow vehicle to pull other poor-financial decisions around with, and had been looking mainly at P38 Range Rovers, because I wanted a V8, when the "Similar items" feed on one auction page showed me this Pajero. I decided to stuff the Rangie, as it would no doubt go Longbridge on me, and put in a £1500 bid for the Pajero. I won it for £1400, cheap money for one of these now. It ticks 2 out of 3 of my ideal Pajero boxes, being SWB (the LWB ones are significantly heavier, and you don't really need the space unless you're going for a week in the outback or have a large family), and it has a diesel engine (you can get the 3 litre petrol V6 also used in the 3000GT, but even I am not masochistic enough to feed one of those). The third box (literally) would have been a manual gearbox, but this is an autotragic. Still, for the price, can't complai. I did get the original set of wheels thrown into the bargain (the wheels on it are from a later facelift mk2 Pajero).

 

I had to beg the use of a friend's Mercedes Sprinter, and another friend's trailer, and drive all the way down to the middle of nowhere in Somerset to get it. It belonged to a farmer (naturally) who had bought it about 7 or 8 years ago as a runaround, and also to mess about in his fields in with his young children. Then Covid happened, and the Pajero was parked. It did benefit from the 6 month Covid MOT extension (remember that?), but since 2020 it basically didn't move. Fast forward to now, the kids are older, the farmer has a newer runaround, and he needs the Pajero gone. It did fire up, after a bit of spluttering (glow plugs and old diesel probably), and drove perfectly out of his farm and onto the trailer, so a good start. As

As you can see, Mitsubishi hadn't yet shaken their aircraft experience off from their car division. The altimeter, attitude indicator (or "inclinometer" if you must), and thermometer work fine, but the compass needs to be reset, as it has literally lost its bearings. This apparently involves driving in a tight circle a few times; I'm sure my local mini roundabout will oblige.

Back at home, I took a bit of time to assess what repairs are needed. As with most retro Japanese vehicles, the main issue is rust. This is a 1993 car, but it's been in the UK since 2004, and since it clearly received the standard post-import rust-proofing package of absolutely fuck all, those 20 years in Britain have inflicted their corruption upon it. It's a body-on-chassis vehicle, so the body is less important for structure, but I still found that the rear sills had rotted out, past the point where the rot might be hidden from the MOT inspector by the plastic bodykit, and it's near enough to the seatbelts that it would be a failure. 

Fortunately, no one has fucked with this car's bodywork before, so I don't have to undo or remedy their work before fixing the actual rust. I've started on the driver's sill, and it shouldn't be too difficult. The chassis itself is heavily surface rusted, but doesn't appear to be corroded through in more than one spot, and being steel box section, will be pretty trivial to weld up. The rear body mounts are a bit crusty, but I can just make up some new ones off the car, and cut the old ones off and replace them. The underside in general will get a going over with the wire brush wheel, and then a few coats of proper chassis paint, and cavity wax. The rot has also got to the exhaust, which is original and turning into swiss cheese. I've already bought a stainless replacement, which you can see in the car.

As far as mechanicals go, the only important thing that doesn't seem to work is the handbrake. You can pull it, but it does nothing. I haven't investigated further yet. I'm also going to be giving it a full engine and gearbox service, as well as doing the timing belts and water pump. The AC also hasn't worked for many years, and I am determined to get it working again. That will probably be a pain, as this car was made in the twilight days of R-12 refrigerant, so I'll need to see what my options are. Still, plenty to be getting on with; apart from getting the car MOT'd so I can actually drive it, there is another incentive. The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that it's on a J-reg plate, not a K or L as would be expected for a 1993 vehicle. This is a private plate, and apparently it's worth between £400-800 on the plate market, so that'll pay for a few parts in itself.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

These have all but disappeared, haven't they? Good to hear values have finally started to creep up - it should help preserve the remainers for a little longer. My brother owned a proper unicorn Paj a few years back - a J top manual in white. Super rare at the time and virtually extinct now. 

Yours has taken me straight back to the early 00s, when I taught at a lovely little village school in mid Dorset. Mk2 Pajeros were the weapon of choice for many of the mummies at the time and they often led a double life doing both a gentle school run and chasing sheep across the fields. Really capable 4x4s, even by today's standards. 

Looking forward to seeing this one come back to life!

[Scrubworks]

11 minutes ago, Dick Cheeseburger said:

Yours has taken me straight back to the early 00s, when I taught at a lovely little village school in mid Dorset. Mk2 Pajeros were the weapon of choice for many of the mummies at the time and they often led a double life doing both a gentle school run and chasing sheep across the fields.

Similar experiences to me then, although, since I went to a private school, the mummies there wouldn't have been seen dead in anything but a new Rangie, Disco 3, X5, or other equivalent Chelsea tractor. When the Rangie Sport debuted in 2006 schools like mine probably accounted for a quarter of all sales.

It's funny you mention the values. I was on the phone to the owner of Pajero Shop, very helpful guy, because he'd sent me a timing belt kit that didn't fit. It turned out that my Pajero, being an early 93 model, is fitted with a leftover Pajero mk1 engine, which uses different belts. He said to me "If you had a whole mk1 Pajero you'd have a collector's item. Unfortunately you don't, so you'll have to wait a few years."

[R Lutz]

I've a Shogun that needs a few upgrades, whats the best places to go to?

[J-T]

I really like these and keep saving them to my watch list on eBay, but they seem to all be in Bradford (no) or need a weld fest. I grew up right in the sweet spot of that grey import boom in the late 90s/early 2000s so these, bighorns (ooof), swb landcruisers etc or Imprezas, galant VR4s, 300ZXs etc would all find a home on my drive if the stars aligned. I love how they always had way better spec that UK cars and just looked better.

[Scrubworks]

28 minutes ago, R Lutz said:

I've a Shogun that needs a few upgrades, whats the best places to go to?

Define upgrades? Polybush kits seem easy to come by with a quick google, which I intend to fit to mine with. If you want lift kits and such, that's beyond my scope. Beyond the odd QOL improvement I'll be keeping it entirely stock.

[yes oui si]

Top purchasing. Looking forward to the updates... 

[Spiny Norman]

These were the precursor to the BMW X5/Aldi Q7 back in the day. Very much non farming community, big wheels, lots of chrome, bull bars, midnight tints, often driven very badly by undesirables. I quite fancy one now, preferably in V6 flavour.

 

[Scrubworks]

2 hours ago, Spiny Norman said:

These were the precursor to the BMW X5/Aldi Q7 back in the day. Very much non farming community, big wheels, lots of chrome, bull bars, midnight tints, often driven very badly by undesirables. I quite fancy one now, preferably in V6 flavour.

 

The Shoguns were definitely marketed to the middle classes, but by the time we started getting JDM Pajeros in by the boatload there were many farmers who were picking them up. The V6 would sound lovely and give a good power spread, but realistically you're not doing more than about 20mpg, and I just can't afford to run that.

[Schaefft]

Looking forward to seeing more about this one, the blue interior is just peak early 90s JDM.

[Stanky]

My father in law had one of these after his Daihatsu Fourtrak did normal Daihatsu Fourtrak things and turned to orange dust. His was an import SWB with a 2.5 derv engine and an automatic gearbox. He loved it, it was a J-Reg and he must have had it in about 2014 ish. Everything worked except the passenger window IIRC.

I borrowed it a few times when my car was in for MOT or broken and my abiding memory was pulling out of a supermarket onto a two-lane road with queuing traffic and VASTLY underestimating the turning circle. How I didn't demolish the passenger side of the Rover 25 in the far lane I'll never know! The distance between the bull bars and the passenger door of the Rover must have been able to be measured in single digit atoms.

It also did the same fuel economy (about 25mpg IIRC) however it was driven.

10/10 from me. Would drive again and would DEFINITELY take greater care in tight driving manouvres.

[Scrubworks]

2 hours ago, Stanky said:

His was an import SWB with a 2.5 derv engine and an automatic gearbox

Just like mine then. I'm shocked you only got 25mpg out of it, even with an autotragic. Were you running it in AWD mode all the time rather than RWD?

[Stanky]

8 hours ago, Scrubworks said:

Just like mine then. I'm shocked you only got 25mpg out of it, even with an autotragic. Were you running it in AWD mode all the time rather than RWD?

It was a while ago but I'm fairly sure it was in rwd mode, though it's possible it was stuck in AWD mode! 

Was a nice vehicle to drive and went well. He drove it to the south of France with my mother in law and it behaved impeccably, the only fly in the ointment being the inop passenger window making autoroute peages a bit fiddly. 

I think he sold it in the end when he sold his RIB boat

[Back_For_More]

I do love these.... When next looking for a 'new' tow vehicle they'll be top of the list. 

My Mk1 Shogun V6 Manual PETROL was a thirsty but amazing companion through some horror shows. 

Ex wrote it off - apparently sneezed reversing aamd took down a lamppost.... Killed its arse end 

[Belfast Gipsy]

On 12/04/2025 at 10:13, Scrubworks said:

Picture the scene. It's 2003. The young Scrubworks is being brought home from school in mother's W124. As we round a particularly obscured corner on a country road near our village, my mum has to suddenly brake and swerve to the left, to avoid one of the local farmers coming the opposite way round the bend, too fast, and mostly on the wrong side of the road. Because he actually made it round the corner, and isn't on his roof in the adjacent field, he's clearly not driving a Land Rover. No, he's driving one of these:

A mk2 Mitsubishi Pajero, usually with an unironic "Buy British" sticker on the back window. It was a rare drive around rural Buckinghamshire/Berkshire in the 2000s that I didn't see at least one of these things, or one of their Japanese competitors, usually the Hilux or Isuzu Trooper/Bighorn. Farmers and other agri-yobs at the time bought them by the boatload, literally, and it's really not hard to see why. Why spend an eye-watering sum on a new Defender that's built like an allotment shed, or put up with an old Series that can barely reach the national speed limit, when for much less cash you could have a barely-used JDM jeep or truck just off the boat? The Hilux may be the last word in durability, and the Trooper/Bighorn may have been the better value for money, but the Pajero had the style, the most toys, and the most configeration options. It's also the only one which doesn't have a interior that looks like it was made out of melted-down photocopiers. Seeing them every day as a kid cemented their image into that part of my brain which, every time I see or remember the Pajero, jumps to life and nags me to buy one.

 

Like all good car purchases, this was bought from an eBay auction, sight unseen, with only a couple of days notice. I'd been looking on there for a tow vehicle to pull other poor-financial decisions around with, and had been looking mainly at P38 Range Rovers, because I wanted a V8, when the "Similar items" feed on one auction page showed me this Pajero. I decided to stuff the Rangie, as it would no doubt go Longbridge on me, and put in a £1500 bid for the Pajero. I won it for £1400, cheap money for one of these now. It ticks 2 out of 3 of my ideal Pajero boxes, being SWB (the LWB ones are significantly heavier, and you don't really need the space unless you're going for a week in the outback or have a large family), and it has a diesel engine (you can get the 3 litre petrol V6 also used in the 3000GT, but even I am not masochistic enough to feed one of those). The third box (literally) would have been a manual gearbox, but this is an autotragic. Still, for the price, can't complai. I did get the original set of wheels thrown into the bargain (the wheels on it are from a later facelift mk2 Pajero).

 

I had to beg the use of a friend's Mercedes Sprinter, and another friend's trailer, and drive all the way down to the middle of nowhere in Somerset to get it. It belonged to a farmer (naturally) who had bought it about 7 or 8 years ago as a runaround, and also to mess about in his fields in with his young children. Then Covid happened, and the Pajero was parked. It did benefit from the 6 month Covid MOT extension (remember that?), but since 2020 it basically didn't move. Fast forward to now, the kids are older, the farmer has a newer runaround, and he needs the Pajero gone. It did fire up, after a bit of spluttering (glow plugs and old diesel probably), and drove perfectly out of his farm and onto the trailer, so a good start. As

As you can see, Mitsubishi hadn't yet shaken their aircraft experience off from their car division. The altimeter, attitude indicator (or "inclinometer" if you must), and thermometer work fine, but the compass needs to be reset, as it has literally lost its bearings. This apparently involves driving in a tight circle a few times; I'm sure my local mini roundabout will oblige.

Back at home, I took a bit of time to assess what repairs are needed. As with most retro Japanese vehicles, the main issue is rust. This is a 1993 car, but it's been in the UK since 2004, and since it clearly received the standard post-import rust-proofing package of absolutely fuck all, those 20 years in Britain have inflicted their corruption upon it. It's a body-on-chassis vehicle, so the body is less important for structure, but I still found that the rear sills had rotted out, past the point where the rot might be hidden from the MOT inspector by the plastic bodykit, and it's near enough to the seatbelts that it would be a failure. 

Fortunately, no one has fucked with this car's bodywork before, so I don't have to undo or remedy their work before fixing the actual rust. I've started on the driver's sill, and it shouldn't be too difficult. The chassis itself is heavily surface rusted, but doesn't appear to be corroded through in more than one spot, and being steel box section, will be pretty trivial to weld up. The rear body mounts are a bit crusty, but I can just make up some new ones off the car, and cut the old ones off and replace them. The underside in general will get a going over with the wire brush wheel, and then a few coats of proper chassis paint, and cavity wax. The rot has also got to the exhaust, which is original and turning into swiss cheese. I've already bought a stainless replacement, which you can see in the car.

As far as mechanicals go, the only important thing that doesn't seem to work is the handbrake. You can pull it, but it does nothing. I haven't investigated further yet. I'm also going to be giving it a full engine and gearbox service, as well as doing the timing belts and water pump. The AC also hasn't worked for many years, and I am determined to get it working again. That will probably be a pain, as this car was made in the twilight days of R-12 refrigerant, so I'll need to see what my options are. Still, plenty to be getting on with; apart from getting the car MOT'd so I can actually drive it, there is another incentive. The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that it's on a J-reg plate, not a K or L as would be expected for a 1993 vehicle. This is a private plate, and apparently it's worth between £400-800 on the plate market, so that'll pay for a few parts in itself.

 

17 hours ago, Scrubworks said:

The Shoguns were definitely marketed to the middle classes, but by the time we started getting JDM Pajeros in by the boatload there were many farmers who were picking them up. The V6 would sound lovely and give a good power spread, but realistically you're not doing more than about 20mpg, and I just can't afford to run that.

I've owned several Pajs from the MK1 (both in 2.5 and 3.0 flavour) and 3 Mk2s including my current SWB 3.0 (which isn't as bad on juice as you'd imagine. Good buy that

[Lacquer Peel]

15 hours ago, Scrubworks said:

Just like mine then. I'm shocked you only got 25mpg out of it, even with an autotragic. Were you running it in AWD mode all the time rather than RWD?

Japanese diesel 4x4s of this era are terrible on fuel. 

[andy18s]

4 hours ago, Lacquer Peel said:

Japanese diesel 4x4s of this era are terrible on fuel. 

I had a 2.8 Pajero Exceed which I thought was ok on diesel, untill I twigged the speedo was still in kph....

[Joey spud]

I really don't want to be all doom and gloom as I really like early Shoguns but when I ran a garage back in the 90's I had a customer that brought a swb auto one of these for his wife as it looked cute and she was into horses.

He came to me to find out why it was so thirsty (low 20's) and not particularly brisk. I did a compression test and checked the cam and pump timing,sticking brakes etc but it was all good. It ran well enough but the auto box really sapped the engines power.

I was also welding these up in the late nineties but would still want one today though.

[stuboy]

many many years possibly 94/94 future BiL pays 10k cash for a LWB automatic metalic beige over silver i think, was great till gearbox went and needed replacing  

[warninglight]

I've always liked these! I took this one from Dumfriesshire to Essex and back for a friend as that's where the guru for changing O rings on the fuel pumps lives, apparently not many folks can do that job reliably these days, but this guy did the lot in the time it took me to eat breakfast. 

His plan was to keep it forever for towing horses, but has since sold it to Bradford where they seemingly all live, as it was having camshaft trouble, and they're apparently now impossible to get parts for? 

[Scrubworks]

1 hour ago, Joey spud said:

It ran well enough but the auto box really sapped the engines power.

I've been thinking that, if I take to it enough to keep to it long term, I could manual-swap it, as there's no electronic shite to deal with, and you can (I think) use the manual box from the mk3 Pajero/Shogun which are relatively common.

Another plan was to make it into my own version of a Pajero Evo, by installing a Lancer Evo 7/8/9 4G63T engine for the lulz.

1 hour ago, warninglight said:

they're apparently now impossible to get parts for? 

Amayama and Nengun have been invaluable for providing me with part numbers. Pajero Shop are also very helpful. With cars like this knowledge really is power. You can find all sorts of bits that are either still being made, or at least are sitting on a shelf somewhere in the world as old stock. Regular consumables haven't been any problem so far. The only parts I've struggled with are the AC condenser, which really isn't available now, and a pair of trans cooler lines that are rotting through, and I've had to source from two different places as one of them is NLA. Worst case is I could just have some lines made up though. Really though, with a lot of these cars it's more how much effort you're prepared to put into getting, refurbishing, or adapting parts. One of my friends basically gives up on parts for a car if he can't get them from Euro Car Parts, because he is phenomenally lazy and can't be arsed to google things.

[Lacquer Peel]

Thirsty but simple and will run on alternative fuels if that's your bag. 

They are good looking 4x4s too.

[BorniteIdentity]

*Adds ‘Go Longbridge’ to common vernacular.

Great purchase. I used to see a couple of these growing up, but it will have been months since I last saw one doing its thing. Very well bought indeed!

[Scrubworks]

3 hours ago, Lacquer Peel said:

Thirsty but simple and will run on alternative fuels if that's your bag. 

They are good looking 4x4s too.

Yes, good point. I've already got plenty of experience running diesel/sunflower oil mixes in my 190D, so I can carry on with that.

It also occurred to me last night that a lot of people will have been running these around with off-road tyres, which are horrible for fuel economy on tarmac. It has some General Grabbers on which I really don't need, so I'm going to flog those wheels and fit the original set with some Yoko Geolanders, which hopefully will have a demonstrable improvement on fuel economy. If not, they'll at least make it much nicer to drive.

[Scrubworks]

The enmity between mechanics and parts people is often well deserved. I rang up a radiator place about 2 weeks ago and asked if they could make me a condenser for the Pajero, as nowhere has them in stock. They said they could..... for £500. Yeah, no. I'm not going to pay that unless I absolutely have to. He did say that, since they were an official distributor for Mahle, he'd see if he could get one from them, since I was able to give him the part number of the exact item he'd need.

Rang him up today to ask if he'd had any luck. He'd completely forgotten 🤦‍♀️.

[warninglight]

14 hours ago, Scrubworks said:

 

Amayama and Nengun have been invaluable for providing me with part numbers. Pajero Shop are also very helpful.

Ah apologies- I meant it seemed to be impossible to find decent quality camshafts for these engines now, rather than general parts availability. It sounded like there are a few options of poor quality camshafts out there.