First off my names Preston and I live in Memphis, TN. I've had a few friends that have owned jeeps and off road Rigs and have dabbled a bit in trail riding on atvs etc.. But haven't really had a lot of interest in it till recently. Also I've grown tired of making truck payments and whatnot and would like to downgrade so to speak ( I currently drive a 2009 GMC Sierra Z71).  Anyway I've heard alot of talk about Samurai's and I think one would work for me seeing how I only have a two mile commute to work. I've found a couple in my area on craigslist and was wondering if you guys could give me some pointers and do's and don'ts.

First samurai I found was an 87 white with a bad soft top.. It's got an upgraded carb and headers with a small lift and newer oversized a/t tires. Body is a lil rusted and it doesn't have a back seat.. The older man that's selling claims the motor was rebuilt recently and wants $3900 for it.

Here are a few others I've found.. Again any pointers would be helpful and thanks in advance!

http://memphis.craigslist.org/cto/2449422322.html

http://memphis.craigslist.org/cto/2458688252.html

http://memphis.craigslist.org/bar/2455200665.html

http://memphis.craigslist.org/cto/2453710262.html

I like all of them! The one with all the mods seems nice if you plan to use it a lot offroad. But for a daily driver you would want to replace the dif with one not welded. The others all look great too. Hard to decide. Do any have AC? That is the one thing I wish mine had. If I did it over again I'd try to find one with AC.

I like all of them too!! Makes it hard to decide..  I'm kinda leaning towards the white stock one with the two piece hard top.. or the first one I mentioned.  I'll have to find another rear end but most of the guys I've talked to have a whole herd of Sammy's so shouldnt be too hard to find a stocker!!  As for the ac.. I think I'm outta luck.. assuming its not too difficult that will probably be my first project or some sort of engineering !

Take it for a cruise first.  For run-about rigs a lot of us prefer Trackers over the Samurai just for daily driver comfort.  But I wheel an SJ. 

I like the stock rig with the hard top myself.  Fuel injection, nice looking and a pretty decent price.  The only issue is the hard top, if you want a soft top you need to replace everything every winter.  What a pain in the ass. 

Yeah I've check out the others still between the 92 and 87. Is fuel injection ever a problem for these things? And I'm not worried about the hard top have a garage so top will be off most of the time. And ill buy a little beater car to do long distance traveling just need the zuki to get me around town 

The fuel injection is pretty solid, and if you don't plan on jumping up to a larger motor is the way to go.  But if your planning on going to a 1.6l motor it may be a waste to spend the extra money on something your going to replace.  Some of the computers have issues with capacitor leakage but I don't know the years off-hand.  Usually it is a Tracker issue.

I would take EFI over a carb setup on a samurai any day.  Yes, the samurai EFI ECMs have capacitor issues (90-93 seem to be the worst).  Simply replace the capacitors, before they cause a problem and you should be good to go forever.
EFI is nice.  Starts great in all weather conditions.  Automatically compensates for elevation changes.  Will run at any angle off road.  No spitting, sputtering, etc.  If there is a problem with the EFI system or the engine, generally the check engine light will flash the code to tell you where to look for the problem.

Oh, and that tintop with the spring over and bigger tires...he says 30-35MPG....he is full of shit.  Stock samurais won't get that kind of MPG, so adding bigger tires definitely won't raise the MPG to 30-35.   You might get 25ish out of it.