Which Jeep for me

cj stands for civillian jeep, built by kaiser, and more recently american motors. amc redesigned the cj and made the great yj wrangler, a great improvement in many ways over the old cj. when krysler stole jeep from amc, they started cheapening amc's designs for the cherokee, wrangler, and grand cherokee. one of the results was the tj, an uglified amc wrangler, but which used amc's front suspension, regarded by some as an improvement over the previous leaf spring setup. as a jeep newby, you probably should consider an original wrangler design, '87 on up to early '90's. condition and past use-abuse are critical with any product, especially something abuse-prone such as a jeep. common mistakes by newbies: thinking that gigantic tires and big lifts are essential for serious off-roading. warning: don't be confused by labels, such as the word "jeep" stuck on things such as krysler's tall, skinny, tip-prone funny-looking misshapen "liberty", which is not really a jeep, but rather something else entirely. hope this helps. good luck. you will probably come to love your jeep, and jeeping in general. ~~

Up until 86 they were cj's 87-95 sqaure headlights are yj's 91+ fuel injected 96 no wrangler 97+ tj no more leaf springs smoother ride when lifted better ride than cj or yj my opinion would be get a 97+ 6 cyl!!!!

Go for a '97 or newer. '91 to '95 are "ok" (aside from having square headlights) but their leaf spring suspensions don't ride as well on the street and they take more to build them so they wheel offroad as well as the '97 and newer with their coil spring suspensions do. The introduction of the '97 really got Jeeping going even more than it was, the newer Jeeps are truly a great design.

Jerry

CJ "Civilian Jeep" was built from the end of WWII until 1986. The most commonly thought of ones are from the late 50's forward, and are CJ 5's and

7's, but there were long wheelbase CJ 6 and 8's. The 6's were earlier and based on the 5's. The 8's were the Scramblers of the 80's.

YJ's are the first Wranglers. They were the square headlight models which were basically an updated CJ7 in many respects. They sat lower and had a wide track, which made them more stable on the road. This was a big deal after a 60 Minutes article about Jeeps flipping.

TJ's are 97 and newer models with round headlights and coil sprung suspensions.

I would say the CJ's are the most rebuildable, since parts like new frames and complete tubs are available for them. You're likely to find a good YJ in good shape that'll require less work for the money. Both CJ and YJ are cheaper to lift, with their leaf sprung suspensions. TJ's ride the nicest on-road, but their coil sprung suspension can get costly to modify and lift.

Correction. In 89 there were two options. 2.5L Renix TBI or 4.2L carbureted.

The first 6cyl >correction, 89 and up were fuel injected. 89 had the option year, either

wrong-------

4cyl only were fuel inj 6 cyl were carbs until 91