Opinions Please

For the Pajero , thats more a Petrol Budget. It would be an NG , arounf the 89, 90 mark. The Turbo Diesels around that period tend to go a bit higher then that.

Are you sure you really need a Diesel.

For the sort of money you have you are looking at an ageing vehicle , probably with plenty of K's on it. When diesels break , even old ones , they are expensive to fix.

Scott, go to the trader section of EO next to forum heading and click open all cat. and there is a 91 pajero for $5000 and a 60 series deisel for $7400, may be others so have a look. You should be able to get a resonable 60 series for $6500.

scott if you get desiel make sure its a turbo (not after market and at least 3L)my current rig is the first turbo I have ever had and without and you press that pedal nothing startaling happens except it will hang on to long ane snap axels (landrovers) but with the turo it gets up and gos or gets up and gos down joking aside in sand hills you can cruise and if you need more its there

hope this helps frank

Twba Scott 4wd Monthly have a Buying Used 4WD guide on sale in newsagents with good info.These guys are little biased towards landcruisers but they reckon the 60 series is a good buy in your price range. The Patrol would also be ok.
Plenty of happy jack/pajero owners around and with oil prices reaching $40 dollars a barrel they will be happier than landcruiser/nissan owners.

Mid 80s 4wd are 20 years old next year so realistically you will still need to spend another couple of grand to get it up to a good standard.

Lean towards an unmodified vehicles that look like they spent all their time on the bitumen.There is plenty out there, you just got to keep looking.

Fitting 3rd row seats can be tricky to a model that didnt have them new.You can run into problems such as safe anchorage points for the seat and seat belts,headroom and access.
Older landcruisers and maybe nissans have 6 seater versions.

I am currently in the process of buying a 4wd. It is a 93 jackaroo and am hoping to pick it up for about 10k(private buy). This will be my first 4wd and realize it is not in the league of Nissan or Patrol for off road capabilities but it has high low gearbox and apparently handles sand allright. I am more into buying my first 4wd for the comfort and room of the vehicle and want to be able to go camping and to be able to tow a camper trailer( family man).
IT is a v6 petrol and it has done 210,000 k but from all articles I have read and searching I have done on this site it seems a good choice for a first 4wd as there seem to be few problems with them and are cheap to buy AKA MORE ACCESSORIES to put into the vehicle.
I personally believe in buying a vehicle that is clean and doesn't need work done to it to get it " up to scratch" as you always find more problems than you anticipated IMHO.

Good luck
Sparkie(IE not Y);-)

Twba Scott,
I agree with a lot of the other replies, diesels for that sort of price are going to be tired and or old, big bucks to fix as mentioned, I spent about $7000 doing a TD42 Nissan motor, properly I might add doing it myself. You could do a lot worse than having a play in an FJ40 shorty, I did it was great fun, I also have an 86 Rangie as a bush hack now, cheap as chips in the great scheme of things, oil is cheap and stay out of water. I know a guy who bought an diesel 60 series for about this sort of money, spends more time off road on blocks than off road having fun. I've had my Rangie for about 18 months now and I've spent very little fixing things, starter motor and a fuel pump (my choice), had some great fun, great off road.