Here's the back story: I drive a volkswagen. My dad owns a toyota truck rock crawler. My fiance owns a jeep cherokee rock crawler. My brother owns an international scout 2 rock crawler. One day my brother found three samurais for sale on craigslist in our town for $600 each. So he bought one. The next day, I bought the other two.

this is my brothers, an 87 with 78,000 original miles.

and these two are mine. The one on the left ('88) is the one that I'm building and the other ('86?) is the parts car. The deal was, they had been bought about 10-15 years ago by a golf course and used for maintenance and whatnot, and the blue one hadn't run in years, according to the guy we were talking to, so he said he'd sell the silver one (running) for $500 and the blue one for another $100. I test drove the silver one just because I could and it started right up, shifted through all 5 gears and reverse and into 4 wheel drive perfectly. Oh, and it's got 90,000 original miles and no DMV back fees-being non-op'd for it's entire life on the golf course. Can you say sweet deal?

we decided that it fully resembles those little plastic electric barbie cars that you buy for kids, thus the Barbie Zuki was named.
so in a nutshell, I'm pretty stoked to have my own 4-wheeler. We drove my brothers and my silver one home with no problems, but the parts zuki had to be trailered. When we got home and opened that one up, we concluded that the head gasket had been blown and the car had continued to be driven, and then left to sit for however long it takes to completely rust out the valve train. The engine won't even turn over with a wrench, but all the other parts are ok!
So far, my plans are to do a spring-over-axle, smack some tires on it, bend some custom bumpers, and buy a winch...and then lockers and roll cage etc, etc, etc. So, the usual, right?
Of course, that's after we replace the valve cover gasket (it BELCHES oil), do a general tune-up, timing belt, get a working top and interior in order, and get it to be a good running stock truck first, right? Right. The adventure begins.

PS, many more posts and pics to come.

so here are the tires I have for it:

33x12.5r15 interco super swampers...uhhh ok. My dad got these for free from a buddy of his, he gave them to my fiance to use on his Jeep, and then my fiance bought brand new Mickey Thompson baja claws, so I've got them on craigslist right now to trade for a set of 31's
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/pts/3248347495.html

Awesome!   You're going to have a blast in that bad boy, or girl, I should say.   Can't wait to see the rest of the pictures.

What a sweet deal!  Two Sami's for $500... I'm jealous.  I picked up a Sami yesterday myself and have started the build up/clean up.  Mine is going to be a daily driver/ toy build for Moab.  Nothing too crazy, lift, tires/wheels, gears, lockers, bumpers... Same stuff as your doing.

Good luck with your build up!

Rob

Thanks for the support everybody really, I can't wait to take this thing on its first trail run. Can anyone point me to a northern california zuki club?

so the other day we sanded down the terribly rusted bed, sprayed some of that stop-rust crap on it, and sprayed it primer black, I have yet to order roll-on bedliner, and then we threw in a passenger seat!
also, here's a pic from today; we took the top off my brothers zuki (it was in the worst condition of the three tops) and cut it into a ghetto bikini top (haha, barbie in a bikini top) anyways, I clipped it onto the back top support bar with binder clips to keep it from hanging behind the cab. Also, we finally got it into my fiances shop and did the valve cover gasket, oil change, full tune up, and swapped out the shifter to the one from the parts car, which was in better shape than the stock one. I wish I had taken pictures of the old spark plugs, they were gross, and the old oil was disgusting too. I'm surprised there wasn't something growing in my cylinders.

oh, and the lisence plate is zip-tied onto that grill pretty well, don't worry about it falling off mid-trail...

so check this out, this is probably a really bad idea but I looked up some SPOA kits and wanted to see if it would be cheaper to build my own, finding my own parts on ebay.
here's the cheapest SPOA I could find:
$405 but you have to send them your stock steering or else get charged $35 http://www.trailtough.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=39&category_id=7&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=53

so here's my build-your-own SPOA (all prices include shipping):
leaf spring perches $52: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ANTIWRAP-LEAF-SPRING-PERCHES-SPRING-OVER-LIFT-PADS-SAMURAI-/160877463708
extended brake lines...but there's only 3? for ~$73: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Extended-SS-brake-lines-hoses-Suzuki-Samurai-Sierra-/261084822644
z'd steering $96: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rocky-Road-Outfitters-7-Z-Link-Steering-Samurais-/350446823752
3/4" driveshaft spacers, 1 for $28 so 2 for $56: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Suzuki-Samurai-Driveshaft-Driveline-Spacer-3-4-86-89-/140735406909
I decided against shock mounts...because I make minimum wage part time and go to school and well, I don't have a lot of money. So do I need these?
anyways, the total cost is about $277. Has anyone else made their own SPOA and have any advice/links/problems/prices?
either way, it looks like I'm gonna have to start saving and wait until next summer, so we'll see what I can afford then

I also just found this: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=Samurai+Spring+Over+Axle+Conversion+Kit&_sacat=0
it's the same SPOA as the one they have on trailgear but $20 cheaper but neither come with the z bar...we'll see

I am not a fan of that style of spring pads.  The ones from Sky Manufacturing are much nicer and will allow you to just weld on without having to worry about tearing the axle tube due to spring wrap.  You also get a high-steer kit which will eliminate the bump steer from the lift.

For the lift, I recommend spending the extra money and getting the Stage 2 lift from Sky Manufacturing.

http://www.sky-manufacturing.com/new/detaproduct.php?id=92

Or you can get basically the same thing from Low Range in two parts and save you self a few dollars:

http://www.lowrangeoffroad.com/index.php/suzuki/samurai/suspension-kits/basic-weld-on-spring-over-axle-kit.html
http://www.lowrangeoffroad.com/index.php/suzuki/samurai/steering/sky-man-ots-cross-over-histeer-kit.html

If you want to stay on the low cost side, I recommend reading this thread as it covers how to do a SPOA for about $50:

http://www.zukiworld.com/forum/general-suzuki-forum/basic-spoa-on-a-lwb-sj-413-using-stock-parts/

Wow, that's a really good deal, all of them actually. Thanks a ton  

now time for updates!
gavin has beat the crap out of his poor zuki, I guess it was in the way of his scout trying to exit out back yard, so he tried pushing it with the scout...with the parking break on in the sami...so now his tail gate won't open and everything in the back of the vehicle slants towards the front of the car. His t-case also froze up, he thought it was toast but figured out it was just the bushing down there.
Mine also just went out about 20 minutes ago, so I ordered some replacement bushings for both of us just now from this weird little website:
http://www.gbcarparts.com/proddetail.asp?prod=SUZUKISHEET2954
oh well, it was cheap.
ok, so here's something exciting: last weekend we went up and did the Rubicon trail for a Marlin Crawler (toyota 4x4 parts) event and I'm so glad I didn't take the barbie car, it was way more brutal than I remembered, but matt's jeep, my dads toyota, and our friend cory's toyota all made it out with...ok, well I'd say minor damage. The worst hit was to cory's tail light assembly (toast.) matt attained his first visible body damage on his lift gate and back passenger door, it's nice to not hear him go "oooh" every time we bump something anymore.
oh well rubicon, maybe next year.

Is the t-case locked between gears or does it no longer turn?

the t-case was stuck in neutral and wouldn't shift anywhere, but it's fixed now as long as I don't try to shift it out of 2H. Just waiting on the bushing now.

bushings are here! I think I'll go install that after this post...
so I've been doing research on tops and what I've found is that most manufacturers don't say what material their bikini tops are made out of (weather or not they're water-proof) and windjammers for pre-95 samurais don't exist.
and then I found this post:
http://www.zukiworld.com/forum/build-diaries-how-to-diy/suva's-homeade-hardtop/msg194450/#msg194450
and that's what I've decided to do. hard tops are cooler anyways. I have too many soft tops.

oh, and Gavin just bought this for $900

bilstein shocks, big mud tires, yota axles, marlin-crawler-built 6:1 geared t-case (along with one stock one), yota springs, shiny new seats, yota high-steer, some janky shackle flip that gets stuck when you hit the breaks, and a partridge in a pear tree. oh, wait, no papers whatsoever. whatever.
lucky bastard. lets see how long this one lasts...

Your brother's 87, is that a jx? I'm sure that's my old zuk. Sold it a while back when I was in Berkeley about 10 years ago and still miss the thing dents and all.

Your brother's 87, is that a jx? I'm sure that's my old zuk. Sold it a while back when I was in Berkeley about 10 years ago and still miss the thing dents and all.

I found a jx emblem in the glove box and we bought it from a guy in hayward, small world?

Your family is like a magnet for cheap Samurais! Maybe I'll come hang out and see if one comes our way!