I've owned about 15 cars and my 05 Liberty Limited is my first new vehicle. When I bought it I had no thought of running my new baby in the woods and did not purchase any trail options.

Things change. My girlfriend has a Wrangler and I have a blast 4 wheelin' with her and her friends which leads me to be the brunt of all their jokes. Yea, I'm the only male in her little group that has a Jeep which is not fortified for trail use. I could but I don't want to damage the underside.

For testosterone reasons I don't want to consult any of them so my question is...What should I do first to be confident to hit the trails? I know I'll need skid plates but what should I do next? As you can probably tell I'm a greenhorn and any help would be appreciated.

Thanks, just realized I've spent the last two hours perusing this site. Great Job.

first you need a set of skids, engine, tranny, transfer case, gas tank. then you should get a set of rock rails from www.bouldebars.com (also can purchse the best tranny skid through them). make sure you have tow hooks or a hitch (some sort of recovery point is a MUST). then you NEED recovery gear. do some research about wheeling and get with a good group of people who know what they are doing to help you out. then start hitting the trails, you'll get bitten by the bug and re-mortgage the house buying parts for your KJ. enjoy...

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04' Columbia KJ
Goodies...

(1) Skid plates. The OEM ones are fine (I have them) but they're not built to take prolonged abuse time after time. Stronger skid plates are made by companies like All-J products (http://www.boulderbars.com).

(2) Boulder Bars. You'll need this to avoid damaging your rocker panels. They also provide nice lift points for hi-lift.

(3) Lift. 2.5" seems to be popular. There are many lift kits available, check the board for opinions. I have a Rusty 2.5" suspension lift ($450), but if I had to do it again I would have gone for the Frankenlift ($700).

That should be good enough for the trails. Other things you'll need are detailed in several other messages (what to pack for trips, what you want, what you might like to have, etc.)

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DIRTY KJ :: flickr photostream
"Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare ... some would say it has yet to occur on Earth" --- Stephen Hawking

Don't forget common sense. It's your friend on the trails.

So just wheel it, and discover what you'll need next time.

I wheeled mine at the stock height but had plenty'o' protection. So that is the first route. There are many choices when it comes to lifts; it just depends on the money flow. Best 1 to buy on the low would be Rustys a lot of people complained about his shocks not fitting right so just order without it and get some ranchos. Tires well we have a whole section just for this. So that’s up to you. I just put on the skyjacker lift, which gets a little bit of grief from some of the guys on the board. Going to order my Cooper STT tires on Tuesday. Like I said it is all about how much cash flow you have and your own preference.

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"CHROME DON'T GET YOU HOME" "Just because I don't care dosen't mean I don't understand" Homer J. Simpson

Webshots

You know, on that note ... you're going to need to adapt

If you're out on the trails, and they have more experience than you do, the last thing you want to do is to get all macho and not ask for advice. Are those testerone reasons good enough to justify damage to your vehicle and self? You decide

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DIRTY KJ :: flickr photostream
"Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare ... some would say it has yet to occur on Earth" --- Stephen Hawking

Thanks for all the responses. No, no, no I didn't mean I would go it alone without asking help on any trail. However, I wanted to get some ideas to toughen up my Jeep w/out them. She's off to visit her parents and won't be back for a few weeks. I probably won't be able to get the work done in that time but I wanted to a least have the parts.

Thanks again.

Coolness Go have fun. Take a look at these:

http://www.lostjeeps.com/forum/phpBB3/vie ... php?t=1449

This is the trip we did last weekend (8/27) in Last Chance Canyon. The photos should give you some ideas of what we've done to our KJ's. You'll see the Boulder Bars, lifts and larger tires, skid plats, gas-tank skid, hidden hitch, roof racks, CB antennas and more.

What you probably won't be able to tell from the pictures are some members' KJs with lockers in them. "MSTILLI" has ARB air locker, for instance. That KJ rocks

Mine is the white KJ here:

http://www.lostjeeps.com/forum/phpBB3/vie ... php?t=1445

Trail leader is our very own Mountain Goat "jpzkj".

Oh, yeah, don't forget the maglite mount and peanut butter.

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DIRTY KJ :: flickr photostream
"Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare ... some would say it has yet to occur on Earth" --- Stephen Hawking

You realize they work better on the KJ than next to it in the garage.