Thinking about buying JEEP

[SUPER'BURB]

If you want one get one but be very carefull with manual jeeps of that era. Make sure you are not getting one with the peugot tranny. With 32" tires, lockers, some dirt and rocks you will blow slave cyliders like crazy. I sold my jeep after 3 years because the slave is inside the tranny and I had replaced 5 of them. I liked the rig but after a little time my cousins started calling it Jess Empty Every Pocket.

Oh ya the milage was only 2 miles to the gallon better than I got with my old pick up.

 

[ecameron87]

I guess I better chime in for my own sanity. If you don't have money for gas, then I don't see the use getting a jeep. I have never heard anyone say that their jeep is affordable. Either its a cheaper one that gets bad gas mileage, or an expensive TJ that gets good mileage. Whichever way you go, you want to modify it and like the early bronco and landcruiser, they are expensive to modify. You have to look at the base price of the vehicle and the MPG it gets at the same time. With a Jeep stock or modified, you pay a lot for the name........and I won't go into that any further.

We sit here and play the "K5's are better...Jeeps are better" game all day long, but what it really comes down to is this..... the winner had this mod, or that mod that made it perform better than the rest. These mods take money. So really is it the richest or deepest in debt that win at this game? I guess skill has something to do with it.

Anyway....

Between my brother and I we have done the YJ, K5, and Samurai thing and the cheapest by far was the Samurai. K5's are great offroad, cheap to buy and build, but are big for the trail and get poor gas mileage. Samurai's are very cheap to buy and build, get great mileage, but have no power and have a very short wheelbase like the jeep. You can regear the snot out of the Samurai's transfer case to bring your power back with bigger tires for fairly cheap and still drive it on the freeway with 33's at a decent speed.



Here is the Samurai I had as a DD for almost 2yrs until I could afford another Blazer.
It got around 25MPG with 31" tires.
I paid 1500 for the Samurai
$500 on transfer case Gears
$120 on rims
$50 to have someone weld perches for a Spring over
$150 on used tires
$200 Locker
All-in-all I spent around $2500-$3000 on the thing and it wheeled the snot out of my brothers $6000 YJ "Cheep-Jeep" (33" tires, 4" lift, 4banger, 12mpg)
The biggest perk is I didn't hear dollar signs going down the drain whenever sheetmetal got dinged

My Vote:
Build a Samurai, or buy a cheap rice burner and keep the K5

 

[mouse]

So you're turning a FJ-40 back into a fullsize then?

Sorry, it wasn't me who started the thread....Ben B was. I was only stating the last time I thought about something other than my blazer. I have far too much wrapped up in my beast to consider anything else! (Plus I can't wait for some warmer weather to start on the projects that are gathering up in my garage...TBI, serpentine, locker, etc).

 

[K30CJ]

You have to do a lot more to a Jeep than a lift and big tires to make them work good off road.

To be fair, that statement applies to most any stock 4WD. Except some of the newer rigs like Rubicons and Power Wagons which are fairly capable from the factory.

I agree, Zuk's can be really cheap to build into a capable rig. I just can't deal with the lack of power. And they're awful small for me.

Just Empty Every Pocket.

 

[Ben B.]

Well, after your comments i'm keeping the Blazer.

Anyway, I can't have a Sammy, i'm 6'4 and 250lbs.........nah.