by Adam Landefeld

I had checked out the Liberty's drivetrain and found it quite worthy of my interest, and surely, I thought, many after market mods would soon flood the market for the rig. It was a Jeep after all wasn't it? The only car in the world with even close to as many mods produced for it is the air-cooled Volkswagen lineup. I was in a for a rude awakening.

After a year had gone by, and one Safari in the totally stock Liberty, there were still no "monster" lifts available. Two and a half inches were all that I could find. Although I was completely impressed with the ability of my stock KJ to take on and conquer 3 1/2 and 4 rated trails in Moab, something was missing. Over the last twenty years I had grown quite accustomed to running the 4 plus rated trails and above. I really love scaring the crap out of someone in the passenger seat who, by their own endorsement, "can handle anything". I knew that ninety percent of the KJ's drivetrain was what it needed to be for my goals and that the aftermarket crowd should quickly pick up the slack on the rest.

To tide myself over, I built a "homegrown" lift for my KJ. It got me about three inches, but at a cost. I had some ball joint contact at full droop and I had changed the leverage on the front stuts to a point where the ride was diminshed and the struts were on a colision course with the scrap heap. Oh well, a new lift will surely be out soon, that's what I told myself anyway.

A second safari came and went, along with numerous un-organized trail runs. My Liberty was performing quite well and I was asking more and more of it.

On a fateful day in late spring of 2003, I took the family in the Liberty and my brother in his full size Wagoneer running on full width locked Dana 60s and 44 inch swampers up into Mineral Basin near American Fork, Utah. The runnoff from snow melt had turned the upper sections of trail into nasty obstacles comprised of deep mud with subsurface boulders and logs. One particular scramble made my wife even pause and ask if I'd get out the strap. The Strap, shjeesh!

My brother's fuel injected AMC 360 powered the "Beast" up the blockage without breaking a sweat. I chose a route and headed after him. The ruts turned out to be bigger than I first thought, and my 265/75/16s were swallowed up pretty handily. I got mired and decided to take another line. We backed down and my brother watched as four more fruitless attempts passed by. He strolled down to where I was getting ready for a tire thrashing, throttle pegging, mud flinging run at the hill and asked, "Hey, want me to grab the strap?"

The Strap, shjeesh!

We hit the ruts at what felt like a hundred and ten, but probably twenty five miles an hour in low range. The Jeep buffeted from side to side as it pin-balled off the enormous walls of the ruts, and I just kept the hammer down. Most people, including myself, know what happens at this point.

Yep, BAM! ... "Hey, does that smell like gear oil to you?"

Suddenly we had no four wheel drive whatsoever. I looked underneath, saw the stream of gear oil draining from the from differential housing and realized I had just done what I used to make fun of others for doing, letting ego destroy a perfectly good working rig.

We limped the Liberty home to the sound of a noisy front axle, and I stewed all the way as my wife routinely pointed out that I should have took the strap.

The Strap, shjeesh!