I was thinking the same thing.

Now I'll get flamed here. But no one suggested a cherokee. Yes its Uni-body, but by his description its not like hes going to go out and do serious rock crawling.

4doors, longer wheelbase...whoever said short wheelbase as a pro to a CJ is way off, its actually a serious drawback, which is why anyone building a serious offroader from that platform extends its wheelbase.

Anways. hpd30 front.
1987-something came with a d44, 1996+/- came with a crysler 8. the d35 is easily swapped out with minor welding. All YJ's and early TJ's also came with the d35 as did some CJ7s

The Unibody came be strengthened.

And again, the 4.0 is not a bad engine I dont know where that came from. All engines have their querks, the 4.0 has fewer than most.

Buy a cheap cherokee for $800-1500 and put the rest of the money into lift, tires, winch, lockers, gears etc if you max out on just the vehicle than your stuck with stocker friendly trails only.

To my knowledge in the official year list 96 is left out, I have seen 96 YJ Wranglers before (For sale etc). But there is also scattered info about the TJ coming out in late 1996 which does make sense. Who knows.... anyway here is a pic of a 96 up for sale on Autotrader:


(looks sorta like a TJ from the side to me)

Well the manufactored date will say 96 but the style is either a 95 or a 97...both were made in that year as it was a mid year changeover.. So just saying it was made in 96 does not tell what model it is. So the 95's and the 97's both have a year and a half of production.
Big JIm <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

Well of course the 97 Wranglers came out in 96, just as the 2008 Jeeps will hit the shelves any day now! I didn't say no Wranglers were built in 96 just that there is not a 96 model year Wrangler. wikipedia says about 50,000 YJ's were built in 96,I see it on the internet so it must be true <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> I'm sure they were sold as 96 models just as I'm sure they are just the last of the 95s. You can find parts listed for sale for 96 YJ's all day long but try to find a Factory Service Manual for one. They don't exist because Chrysler never made one. The majority of web sites I've seen say YJ's from 87 to 95 and TJ's 97 t0 06. It is pretty trivial, I should have kept my virtual mouth shut I reckon! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/notooth.gif" alt="" />