A stunning specimen of genuine Arizona hillbilly handicraft.

In August, I moved to the Big Island of Hawaii from Scottsdale, Arizona in order to start a degree in marine science here at UH-Hilo. My ride in Arizona had been a 95 trooper which I loved to death. We went everywhere together, and that truck was a tank. We went to coke ovens, box canyon, anywhere all the big-boy jeepsters were going. Only the trooper was dealership-stock. It pained me immensely to have to leave that truck behind for my father to use as a station-car, but I knew that in a state where gas usually tops 3 dollars a gallon, the trooper's 14mpg would just not be economically feasible for a starving college student such as myself. I needed something smaller, something that sipped fuel, but could still get me across the lava fields to the beach on the weekends. I needed a samurai.

We picked up this little pile for 1400 bucks. Jerry-Can mount,
Rattlecan camo-paint for reasons unkown includes orange and white. Off-road lamps drilled directly through the hood leak on in while driving in rain, as do the seams in the roof.

63 raging, surging, rubber-burning (fanbelt, maybe) squirrelpower!

Used to run really rough and stall out whenever you gave it the slightest chance, but we seem to have alieviated that issue with some carb cleaner and a little fine tuning. The zook has a wider "upgraded" front stabilizer, which really only serves to rub the inside of my front right tire to a gooey mess.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

Right so as soon as funds become available, i.e. my job starts paying, this little zook, who already owns a piece of my heart, will own a large piece of my budget. My first project is going to be gutting the interior and rhino-lining it to stave off the rust for as long as I can while providing non-slip surfaces aaand the handy feature of being able to hose 'er out after a day on the trail. After that, it'll be suspension work, probably a rocky road 3" budget lift, and I'll need some new tires by then anyway (costco!). New exhaust, maybe from roadless gear, and whatever else I can scrounge up to make this car function better on the trail and look cooler in the parking lot. No engine upgrades yet though. I'll keep this one running as long as I can while saving up to drop a VW turbodiesel in, then run it on veggie fuel, perhaps.

I used to say my first thing to change would be the paint, but everyone here seems to think it gives the rig character. I'm still not convinced.

Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated, please sign the guestlog.
Cheers.