Ditto all of the above. My take on the 5spd 4cyl montero is that even with a slightly marginal tranny, it's a better truck than most anything but a locked fj80 landcruiser, or one of the diesel G wagen mercedeses. The tranny can be built quite a bit stronger, using parts from an 89 starion or monty, and is quite durable. I abused mine for years, then put a turbo motor in front of it, and REALLY abused it. Somewhere in there, during the carby days I'm pretty sure, I towed a 763 bobcat skid steer loader with it, up some hills I had to use Lorange on in first and really grunt it to get it up the grades, and it lived thru that fine. It was after about 70k behind the turbo, with a multitude of warning signs (the shifter flopped fore and aft when you got on and off the gas, and it was iffy going into 2nd and reverse for a while before it died), and it still got me home, in the only gear it had left, which was 4th, about 100mi or so, and thank Bog for the turbo torque I only had to run one red light. It hauled immense weights in the bed over long distances, usually concrete bag goods. It hauled trailers from popups to 16' flatbeds with a full size Bronco on top to 3 tons of rebar.