Hi folks long time reader, past five years or so. This forum has been a great resource for me. Anyway I've been having some issues with my 1st Gen Montero that me and my mechanic haven't been able to figure out and I'm hoping the collective brain trust here can help me out. I completed a search and haven't found anyone experiencing issues quite like mine.

My Montero had some intermittent no starts and would occasionally die at idle. At idle it would start to flutter between 200-600 RPM than die. Twenty minutes later it would start with no issues. When it wouldn't start I checked for spark and was still getting good spark. So no spark my first thought is something fuel related. Talked to my mechanic and he said that it wasn't uncommon for old fuel pumps to seize up and act like that. One day I go to start it and it won't start, tow it to my mechanic and we pushed it into his shop still won't start. By the time he gets to looking at it of course it's starting no problem and he can't get it to die. It being the original fuel pump I had him replace the fuel pump in it since that seemed like a likely culprit.

Get the car back running drive it home eight miles car runs great. Get in the car thirty minutes later to go somewhere and it won't start of course. Talking to the mechanic he thought it could possibly be the fuel pressure regulator since we are still thinking it's something fuel related. So I replace that, car eventually starts drive it around the neighborhood and it dies.

Push the car back home and it still won't start. Car sits twenty minutes and starts up and idles just fine. leave the car idling for twenty minutes and it starts fluctuating between 200-600 RPM again, throws a check engine light and dies. I check the trouble codes and all I'm getting is an injector code. I replaced the MPI relay thinking that's the only thing injector related that would cause the car to intermittently no start and than eventually sputter and die when it does start. Still same symptoms. I also attached a lead to the fuel pump test port and can hear the fuel pump running, while that lead was attached I went to start it thinking for some reason the pump may not be turning still no go.

Today I'm out there tinkering with it trying to figure out what's going on, I disconnect the battery to clear the trouble codes to see if it will throw a fresh code. Start the car after the engine stumbles a bit and it's idling fine throwing no codes. Shut the car off after five minutes and go to start it again, I hear a relay click and than nothing no power to any accessories, no lights, no door lock nothing. Check the battery still getting 12 volts. Sitting there wondering what's going on, eventually the door open light starts to brighten and gets to full brightness and the door locks start working again. I go to start it and the car looses all power again. If you let it sit for a while it starts to slowly get power back.

I appreciate any help anyone can offer.

here are my WAGs:

first of all, tell Al to fix it.

i had an issue like this on another vehicle. turns out it was a bad wire. not the ends or connections, but the cable inside the jacket had corroded. After 10 min or so running the resistance heated the wire up so hot it couldn't be handled without gloves. Once the wire cooled the engine would run fine for another 10 minutes. After swapping three solenoids I found it by accident when I grabbed the wire and burned my hand.

recently my gen 1 would just die as well but started up every time. i replaced the coil and power unit and haven't had a problem since.

my last guess would be to check the electrical portion of your ignition switch.

good luck. someone will be along shortly with more &and probably better suggestions. please be sure to post along the way and the final solution.

Do a good cleanup on the battery connectors, I had a diesel that acted like the starter was going and had the dim lights and all the odd symptoms. Cleaned the the connectors inside and out, truck started like new and all the electrical gremlins went away.
Another thing you can try is put both jumper cables on the negative pole on the battery and ground the engine block and frame or body, that way you can eliminate ground problems.

Also check for corrosion around the fusible links right off the + battery cable. I had a similar issue until those were all replaced.

Cleaned up the battery posts and replaced the positive battery terminal, it was looking pretty bad. I also swapped the ECU for a spare I keep and the truck fired right up, no trouble codes and seems to be running fine now.

Started it up and let it idle for about an hour with no issue. Hopefully that luck will hold.