advice greatly appreciate!!!!

Ok my initial concept of owning a land rover was soon put in check by some very open dialogue from some forum members, it was very well received :)

im now looking at a run about for occasional weekend away tramping or God forbid I get out for a hunt as well!!! something I can sleep in the back or get a bit of gear in.

im tending towards a surf, down side I am on a budget and im currently overseas. The budget is strict as im having to fund repairs that EQC have told me were pre existing prior to chch earthquakes on an old house! so I am up for new roof and some other repairs!

I have a car for day to day use but last time I took the harrier to Waimate my mechanic spent a good half hour prying the muffler off the chassis!!

as an example I saw this

Toyota Hilux Surf 1989 | Trade Me

I then got the dog and lemon guide and am more confused than ever!!!

What should I be looking for in this age bracket, it not going to be used for major off road but I would like something that can handle a bit of the rough?? Not cost an arm to fuel and reasonably reliable?

Cheers

If you happy with a something a smidgen smaller and petrol look at the old Kia Sportage. Better designed than the old surfs ever were.

I'd go (actually I did do) for an Isuzu Bighorn or Wizard with the 3.1 (4JG2) engine. The running gear and engine are stronger than the Toyota and you get a lot more for your dollar.

the Suzuki vitara or escudo are good. I had a 90's model. four cylinder. there not full time 4x4 and have a low range. the model I had was a bit older than the v6 but many people say the 1600 is the better model. mine was four door, I thought the two door was a bit small.

thanks for the comments, im looking at the Toyota Surf range at the moment, I would prefer something with the ability rear fold down seats and sleep in as well as carry a bit of kit, Tents and packs plus dogs, im keen if anyone has some hints or advice on specific engine issues of petrol engines of the 2.0 3Y 1998 or 2.2 4Y-C 2237? or the diesel 2.4 2L 2446. Again budgets does dictate but I do have a bit of time to look around!

3y and 4y is 2 and 2.2l. Run forever but thirsty. 2l and then the later 3l. Is a 2.4 diesel. (Cracked head) but the 3l is slow and steady but bullet proof engine.
After that maybe 93-94 they went to 1kzte 3lt diesel. Good motor but again head issues. Mine was mint tho.... Iv had all of those engines but now im in a 5 door vitara
Cheap to run wins for me.
Imo try to find a nz new 4runner with a 2.8



Sent from the swamp

http://www.trademe.co.nz/766512759

This one.


Sent from the swamp

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chrome

Toyota Hilux 4runner 1995 | Trade Me

This one.


Sent from the swamp

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Legend...... exactly what I needed to hear nice truck.......will go back and do some sums!

The 1kz with some exhaust work is also an option i think. Shop around and see what is out there

http://www.trademe.co.nz/766603987
That 1kz surf with 1500 thrown at it is a cheaper option..,,,
Sent from the swamp

Turtle... Have you thought about a two wheel drive van. Something like the mitzi l 200 2.5 turbo. Great little vans, fast and lite. U will be able to sleep in it, great for road end hunts. Cheap to run and nice to drive. If you have a misses....she may like to tag along and stay in the nice cozy van too........:P

The Bighorn is in the same class as the Surf but better built and roomier inside. Has the seats that can fold down. Can have head cracking issues like the Toyota 1kzte when pushed, solved the same way with a bigger exhaust. I've had, and still do, Toyota vans with the Y series engines (bulletproof but thirsty), L series engines (bulletproof if not turbo) and currently the 1kzte.

Seriously give the Isuzu a look. The best engines both Toyota and Isuzu are the 2.8l.

@mudgripz

Shit Terts, you'd be better off going back to your original plan and get a Landy.

Nothin like landy comfort...,,


Sent from the swamp

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ishoot10s

Shit Terts, you'd be better off going back to your original plan and get a Landy.

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what like this? Land Rover Series 3 4x4 Green 1981 for Sale - Autotrader New Zealand

was just looking honest!!!!!!

Surf's are good i have a 91 petrol v6 goes great, good to sleep in i have slept in it bout 3 times now cumfey and worm, the only thing i would change is get a diesel as v6 chews the gas.

10c worth of advice from old 4x4 clubber.

Did umpteen years club offroading (hence the site name) and hundreds of tracks including coast to coast etc. After many years of running all the 4x4 makes through obstacles side by side, and knowing the relative maintenance for each model, alot of myths go out the window, and the sturdier trucks emerge.

First thing - forget the old landies. Even in the Canterburyy Landrover club very few members run landies, they are frowned on when you take them on trips because of breakdown rate, and they had special landie days to accommodate them. Don't go there - too brittle. Then forget the new ones. Went on one landrover club trip - it had only two new landies on it - and both buckled steering gear when no other trucks did.

Don't believe the Toyota 'tough truck' marketing. Have watched too many members and mates doing their toyota boxes, diffs, motor work etc when other trucks didn't need it. 2.8 non turbo probly the best of the Toyota motors but not much power. Performance better with turbo bolted on but motor not so reliable afterwards with the extra turbo pressure.

Chrome has summarised the 1Kz motors above. Ok, nice to drive, but a number of club trucks cracked heads and if the water got into the bore it was a $9k rebuild.

Some of the mitsis ok - not as rugged as some trucks but the older 2.5 softtop with factory locker ok - esp if it had the cast iron Mitsi Canter gearbox.

Three good options are the safari, toyota hilux 2.8, and the isuzu 1987-92 2.8T:

Safari very heavy - we called them sinkers for obvious reasons - and a bit gutless unless turboed, but tough, durable donkeys. Easy to mod.

Toyota hilux 2.8 - good engine, tons of parts for inexpensive repairs, Can be made into good performers but you must do the lifts right - have seen hiluxes that look great but on the ramp measured terrible wheel articulation.

Isuzu bighorn 87-92 - a sleeper - in fact an isuzu light truck with 4x4 body. 4Jb1T a cracker of a diesel, easy to tune to 140-150hp, very tough and durable, great drivetrain, easy to mod. Hard to get here now though.

It is no accident that these are the three 4x4s overseas (from Dubai etc) buyers come into NZ to pick up and sell into Africa etc.

Jeeps a no-no. Standing joke among jeep club mates is jeep means "just explode every part'.... Very brittle.

Little suzukis do some things well but with serious limitations - not much torque, no grunt when pushing big tyres, no room for passengers and gear, and no good in deeper rivers - have seen them floating off.

For bang for your buck for an easily setup 4x4 for hunting and moderate offroading, my advice would be the 4JG2 3.1 isuzu wizard. Very underpriced, very sturdy isuzu drivetrain and box and quite good motor. Occasional head cracking but nothing like the toyota 2.4T and 3.0T. As noted above a bigbore even from flexi back will help with this. Quite good ones from $3,500 - alot come with v good isuzu LSD, good range of lockers etc. Don't buy the wizard with 4X1 3.0 motor - crapper of an engine. 92 - 97 Bighorns also good value - similar to but heavier than wizard.

Give me call when you get back Mark - cheers Mike Anderson. Hope this short summary helps.

(And no more *&#* old landies! A Cantab clubmate of mine had one for about 12 years but it hardly ever left his garage - he used a cruiser instead... He spent a fortune on the old series 2 and finally sold it for $1200 - not going.) Nuff said...

mate of mine has a surf for sale ............. good deal ...

Have you thought about the Mazda Marvie? Heaps of room in the back. Looking at them and Wizards atm as a cheaper alternative than surfs...

Was chatting to diesel mechanic mate about the marvies and his comment was leave the mazda 4wds alone - not so robust engineering. They are also v hard on the juice.

Wizard far better option and they go for b*gger all too. Nice on the road, easy to lift, good strong drivetrain and box, and isuzu (like the safari) have excellent LSDs. Pop some Redline Heavy Duty Shockproof Gear oil in them and they bite extremely well - almost as good as a diff locker....almost. Downside with 3.1 motor is it requires new turbo every 120ish ks so don't pick one w noisy turbo whine... Most of the wizards have mechnical rather than electronic fuel pumps so usually easy to add bit more fuel and tweak timing to gain 10hp extra power.

I like the 3.0 surfs to drive - had one as work vehicle - but they're a bit of a lottery and can cost a bundle if head probs occur. In terms of bang for your buck I'd take the wizard as a worker - will be my next 4wd. Just make very sure you don't buy the 98-2000 or so model with the 3.0 4JX1 motor - isuzu's mistake. 4JH1 ok.

Have you thought of a Jeep Cherokee pre 1990. They are only as hungry as your right foot. Hardly any difference between a Landrover Defender and a jeep. except in price the jeep is cheaper.

Landys comfy so its nice to relax in while waiting for the tow truck!:cool:

I recently went against what alot of people said and bought an xj jeep - no regrets whatsoever. Awesome wagon, you can fold the back seat down dead flat right through. Tonnes of grunt, awesome 4x4 capabilites, cheap as chips to buy. Doesn't use anywhere near as much fuel as what people tried to say. I love mine :) btw, from all the jeep forum's I"m on, the only thing they say, is 'people who slag off Jeeps have never owned one, let alone driven one' :)

BEEP BEEP

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gadgetman

I'd go (actually I did do) for an Isuzu Bighorn or Wizard with the 3.1 (4JG2) engine. The running gear and engine are stronger than the Toyota and you get a lot more for your dollar.

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I have a wizard that thing will go any where its a good hack :thumbsup:

I have four 4x4's but only one that sets up easy for sleeping.The wife and I will be camping in it this weekend as the rear seats fold down to make a flat full length bed area, thats the main reason we keep it. Its a 1986 Nissan Safari 3.3 ltr turbo. Cost $700.00 five years ago complete with PTO winch and has not failed a WOF yet. We take it on rallys and hunting ,camping trips of a month duration (We take an Oz Tent ).Cheaper to drive than my 1991 4.2 ltr GQ safari.

Attachment 31211 North Island

Attachment 31212 South Island

the suzukis are good just a bit small to sleep in mine goes every where with hardly any mods I just take a small tent with me stay away from the wizards youd be way better off with a punch in the head and your mechanic will end up hating you. ive had to work on the pieces of shit. that's the diesel ones im talking about

My thoughts/questions.

Maybe not all Toyotas are over-rated-yet after more than 10 of them -I got the impression = either high repairs/maintenance, or use them and throwaway- esp after designed life mileage (opinions vary on that determined point)- the reason terrorists use them I think is because there are so many of them to cannabalise for parts and they become valueless after a while. Great for carrying polystyrene or 2-3 hay bales-not much else.
They are not 100% bad, and do have some good features.
Additionally they are generally comfortable though-part of the marketing ploy I'm sure.

Landrover - good if you can find S2 without rust-new gearbox,new suspension, good engine(not landrover supplied)-high ratio diffs-put up with the tractor like comfort;-Newer ones -well marketed and better to drive to town-expensive to fix.

Nissan patrol = good, yet can be heavy in the mud, expensive to use, and depends greatly on the previous maintenance schedule/ and yours.

What experience have people had with a Daihatsu rugger?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by northdude

stay away from the wizards youd be way better off with a punch in the head and your mechanic will end up hating you. ive had to work on the pieces of shit. that's the diesel ones im talking about

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Depends which model Wizard. The early one with the 4JG2 engine is fine. The later one is let down with the reliability of the 4JX1 engine ancillaries/injection system.

Exactly. In the Wizards the 4JG2 pretty good - occasional head cracking and turbo needs replacing at 120k or so, but otherwise good durable motor. Isuzu's 4JX1 was their failure - quite a good block but v bad fuel system and major sensor problems - a crapper to be avoided.

@mudgripz ..Can you breath a bit more life into the 4JG2 reliably?

Yes - what you can do depends if its an electronic or earlier manually adjusted mechanical fuel pump. If electronic its a much more difficult job to adjust fuel delivery - pump out on the bench etc and even then not much usually.

When tuning the mechanical pumps on diesel isuzus we first increase fuel delivery. Fuel delivery screw on back of mechcanical pumps. Pop the cap off it and adjust this inwards tiny increments of 1/8th, then 1/16th of a turn and check after each adjustment by starting motor, then revving to 3000rpm and holding it couple of seconds to check for black smoke (unburnt fuel). Bit of black is ok and on the dyno best hp is just before motor starts to blow significant black smoke.

Then advance pump timing some - care with this not to do too much or motor starts to knock. Good diesel mechanic can do it. That takes care of fuel - then improve air flow with a 2.5" bigbore ex turbo, with freer flow muffler and perhaps a clean performance filter eg K&N.

Have done about 200,000ks with two 4JB1T (the 2.8 motor) isuzus tuned in this manner and one dynoed at 150hp, and the other about 130hp - plenty for pushing 33s on road and v good power-to-weight ratio offroad. No change in fuel consumption after tuning and no difference to motor longevity.

Pump/fuel gains easy to do if mechanical and not electronic pump. 45 minutes. The 4JG2 3.1 isuzus were mechanical pumps to about 1995-6 then electronic. You'd have to ask your mechanic to check which it is.

@mudgripz what about the first gen Mitsi Challengers? do you know anything about them. For some reason i'm keen on getting one. Ive been warned off the V6 petrols, but it sounds like the 2.8 diesel turbos are a good reliable donk. And you see plenty of them for sale with high (300k+ km's) on them.

Sounds like the challenger is based on the 2nd gen Pajero, so should be reasonable tough. The rear seats fold down fully flat, so as per the original posters brief, would be good to sleep in.

I wouldnt be doing any serious offroad work, just the normal stuff that you might find your self doing when on rough tracks when heading hunting, and farms etc, the odd small creek crossing etc. The only mods i would do is fit a decent set of mud terrain tyres (as i have done on my current 5 dr '96 Vitara) and it gets me all the places i need to go when hunting.

They seems to be a bloody good value truck, $5-6k seems to get a reasonable one.

Any info you could add on them would be awesome.

@mudgripz Sent you a PM.... Cheers

Best thing Sidney would be ring Neil Elkington at Diesel Services off Blenheim Rd. 3488825.

He could do a half hour checkover of vehicle, tell you about cvs/rear main seal/steering box seals/drivetrain/diff seals/turbo condition/pump seals/fuming etc. He's a mate and has worked with me on several isuzus and will give you a good picture on this one. I don't have much time at the moment. Might cost you $40 or something but well worth it when buying an older diesel.

This 97 wizard could be either mechanical or electronic pump, and at $6200 is highish price but that's in part because owner has just spent maybe $1300+ on the new muds. If in good nick with new WOF, and turbo ok, it could be a good wee set up.

If you pop in to see Neil - have just spoken to him - he cd do a check for you friday or so. Tell him Mike sent you.

Cheers Mike....

GWH - I've only seen one challenger in the 4wd clubs so don't know the model well. Offroaders went more for the swb mitsi pajero models with the factory difflock.

Mitsi Challenger is about 96-99 manufacture and generally 2.8T 4M40 motor. Not a great diesel but ok. Just chatting about them with diesel mechanic mate and his comment was some performed well and some didn't - hard to know why. Some are electronic and some mechanical (more easily tweaked) fuel pump - mechanic can tell you which it is.

If you want to buy one get a mechanic to go over it as simple things like leaky rear main seals, pinion seals, leaky pump seals, leaky steering boxes, worn turbos etc can be very costly repairs. Half hour with mechanic is very worth it with older 4wds. If you find a good challenger and it mechanically checks out I'm sure it would do the basic hunter job ok.

I agree the sleeping option is a real plus in a LWB 4wd.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mudgripz

GWH - I've only seen one challenger in the 4wd clubs so don't know the model well. Offroaders went more for the swb mitsi pajero models with the factory difflock.

Mitsi Challenger is about 96-99 manufacture and generally 2.8T 4M40 motor. Not a great diesel but ok. Just chatting about them with diesel mechanic mate and his comment was some performed well and some didn't - hard to know why. Some are electronic and some mechanical (more easily tweaked) fuel pump - mechanic can tell you which it is.

If you want to buy one get a mechanic to go over it as simple things like leaky rear main seals, pinion seals, leaky pump seals, leaky steering boxes, worn turbos etc can be very costly repairs. Half hour with mechanic is very worth it with older 4wds. If you find a good challenger and it mechanically checks out I'm sure it would do the basic hunter job ok.

I agree the sleeping option is a real plus in a LWB 4wd.

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Thanks Mike.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gadgetman

Depends which model Wizard. The early one with the 4JG2 engine is fine. The later one is let down with the reliability of the 4JX1 engine ancillaries/injection system.

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yep 4jx1 that's the one to avoid like the plague

When buying older diesels - or probably any diesel for that matter - its good to go through a short checklist of key parts in the vehicle when inspecting it. Pretty much anyone can do this if you know where to look. Main parts to look for are:

* Steering box seals - is there leakage around box at bottom of shaft = WOF issue.
* Radiator - is there brown dirty water and gunk when you run finger round inside cap area = not well maintained. Check radiator hoses aren't crunchy - easy enough to replace.
* Motor - is it excessively rattly, does it fume alot with oil cap off, and does it blow blue smoke? Bit of blue on start up ok - but not more, bit of black is just overfuelling, puffs of white sometimes water in system = not good. Check also for oil leakages round head/block. Track any leakages/oil dripping.
* Fuel pump - check for any leakages around fuel pump - occasionally you can get away with top seals only but usually a major cost.
* Turbo - is it leaking oil round unit (fixable) or is it whining bad when switched off (terminal)
* Check rear main seal where motor bolted to box. Oil sweating normal, but significant wetness/oil leakage is a gearbox off job sometime.
* Feel driveshafts for movement - if sloppy its likely universal joints - easy enough to do. Check front driveshaft for movement too.
* Check for oil leakage around rear diff head = pinion seal and a bigger job to do and reset gears.
* Check rear axle seals - some pressed in and a fair bit of time to fix.
* Check CV boots - each perished one takes 1-2 hours to replace.
* Gearbox - smooth or lurchy for auto, clutch judder on take off for manual, clutch slip when booting it at very low revs in 4th for manual, smooth and not notchy synchro changes for manual.
* Engage 4wd low range and test it to see it works well without strange noises. Turn some hard lefts and rights to check CVs for clicking = stuffed
* Check electrics - all windows etc - WOF issues
* Road test - does it have enough power or is it gutless for the model. You can do compression/leakdown test but you can usually tell when compressions b*ggered just by driving them. When driving does it smoke - and what colour. Smooth straight tracking or wheel alignment issues.
* Tyre wear - a big cost with 4x4s. Muds more than half worn are not much use in slippery conditions - ok in summer or on rivers.
* Check body for damages and rust - esp in sills etc
* Check for lifts/mods done with no certification - can be insurance issue.

That's just a few basic checkpoints anyone who is not a mechanic can do when buying a 4x4. And if you do them and vehicle passes, chances are its reasonably sound and you won't be hit with big bills. If you are still in doubt get a mechanic to test it - better to spend $50 and save $1000s. There will always be some areas needing attention on an older 4x4 - like CVs or steering box seals or something - and that's where you adjust the price accordingly.

Hope this is useful - kind of question that comes up alot. These are things I look at but maybe we could get a few mechanics here to add to/adjust the points above, and then when we've got a good simple checklist it can be a sticky that anyone can print off when going to check your potential 4wd buy. Save alot of headaches :)

Cheers Mike