iv been an xj and FSJ guy but with the growing family iv been liking the extra room of the zj. i found one locally that the guy seems honest enough and he is willing to deal, but i just dont know enough about zj's, all my knowledge is with xj's. if i bought this it would be a family camping rig and light duty trail rig. maybe in 2 or three years id like to build another crawler so im not looking to make this a hard core rig, maybe 3-4.5" lift, 33x10.5's, remote mount winch, chromoly axles, just some things to keep it reliable. i have noticed the interior of all the zj's iv looked at are real cheep looking and seem to be falling apart, anything else i need to be looking for? here is a link to the zj im looking at.
http://albanyga.craigslist.org/cto/3923044554.html

yes thats a zj in my sig - i bought one and owned it for 1 week, wife didnt like it but like i said, i loved the room.

 

the viscous coupler in the 249 transfer case is likely bad. you can test it by driving in tight figure 8s in a parking lot. if the front tires bind or chirp, the VC is bad. its about 350 give or take for the part depending where you buy it. or you can do the popular swap and put in a 231 or 242 transfer case from another ZJ or an XJ.

to fit 33s on a ZJ, you're looking at probably 6.5 inches of lift, or alot of trimming. personally i think that red ZJ looks too clean to chop up the fenders. but to each his own. 3.5 inches of lift and 31s is just as capable unless you're crawling over huge rocks.

rough country makes a nice winch mount for the ZJ if you dont want a full winch bumper

 

he said the transfer case was rebuilt and i saw paper work and one of the parts was the vc, but it does pop in a tight turn- might be the front cv on the axle.
so if the transfer case was rebuilt and the pop is just a front cv, is there anything else i should be cautious of?

i agree btw - i would not chop the fenders, the white zj had a 3" lift with 2" spacers and had 32's with cut fenders, but it had wide wheels, i was hoping with 4.5" lift and stock or at lest narower rims 33x10.5 would fit.