Which rear diff locker or limited slip best for snow and twisty paved mountain roads?

[underdrive]

All I gotta say is, wow, you do some truly beautiful work! Bonus points for involving the whole family too!

 

[153624]

I also live in a real winter part of Canada. I second the truetrac. Have had two. Love them. In rear D80 in my old dodge. And now in D110 rear of my F450. Awesome traction aide.

 

[radorsch]

Incredible work on the cabin and interior! Beautiful!

 

[jeep-N-montero]

Let me know the next time you are in the area! We are over on the east side of Big Bear City, We'll take you out for a Starbucks or other you wish! We are also building a cabin on property we bought on the south side of the Airport area. We are going with the surplus Forest Service logs (getting them for practically free) and using 14" diameter logs to build a retro lodge/cabin on a combined lot that abuts the open forest land. We are going to get the rock from Rim of the world hwy, in an area that the forest service is allowing people to dig rock out from. If you need any help with your rehab, that is what we do for fun!

I also do custom cabins for people, make them like they are 100 years old (no nails, all Japanese Joinery style), here are pics of one we did at Flathead Lake Montana a couple years ago. We literally cut down local wood(lodgepole pine, and Siberian Elm for the interior built-ins), milled/planked it on site, and made the rock portions from rock we literally dug out of the hillside ourselves and 100% hand split and finished. The pic of the Japanese Tansu front I hand hammered out the ironwork as well. Did a whole lot of hand carving inside on furniture as well.

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Wow that is amazing work, love the fusion of modern appliances with the rustic cabin!

 

[Buliwyf]

You can run a Detroit locker in the rear of a heavy, long, fullsize, with auto, in snow, just fine. (ours unlock with just 2 fingers worth of force, so if you have more traction in snow than my 2 fingers....) But snow tires, or AT's are a must, not mud terrains. And NE driving experience. Drop in autolockers are not a good idea at all. Stiffly set LSD's can be even worse still. Selectable lockers are usually open or locked, so keep that in mind. There is no middle ground with a selectable.

That being said, I recommend an open front, Truetrac rear, with Duratrac tires. Maybe a Truetrac in the front as well. If you do slide off the road, a farm jack and tire chains are priceless.

 

[underdrive]

I strongly dislike open front diffs. They are great for normal driving yes, but when the going gets tough the front axle can provide impressive amount of traction courtesy of the heavy engine sitting right on top of it, and an open diff cannot take full advantage of that. IMHO this is where selectable lockers truly shine, you run it open most of the time, then when you think you're about to lose it you lock the diff and hopefully you keep moving and hopefully it's mostly in the direction you desire.

We actually have a stiff LSD in a front axle. But the steer wheels on that truck also have good winter-rated (with the mountain & snowflake symbol, the "M+S" designation alone IMHO means pretty much nothing these days) A/T tires and carry literally a ton of weight each, so even with hubs locked in the LSD doesn't try to jerk the truck around too much. Overall very predictable behavior, but certainly wouldn't recommend it for a relatively light vehicle. The same LSD in the rear with no rear weight in the bed, you learn how to do drifting rather quick, whether you want to or not

 

[Mighty Dodge Ram]

Thanks for the invite Rockhounder. Yup, ours is stick framed with 2x4...not nominal but true to size. Built in '33 and our family bought it in '46 after the war. Have tugged and pulled at it but still not a straight corner. Just adds to the "hominess". Just finished re-siding and re-roofing for El Niño. Good luck on your two builds...cabin and truck! :sombrero:

 

[Rockhounder]

Thanks for the invite Rockhounder. Yup, ours is stick framed with 2x4...not nominal but true to size. Built in '33 and our family bought it in '46 after the war. Have tugged and pulled at it but still not a straight corner. Just adds to the "hominess". Just finished re-siding and re-roofing for El Niño. Good luck on your two builds...cabin and truck! :sombrero:

Sounds neat. I love the old construction. We are now listing for sale our 1903 pre-craftsman house in pasadena (designed and built by one of the Greene brothers when he was still employed by the pasadena architecture firm). We restored from tearing all the rotten/disintegrating horsehair lath-n-plaster, on a third acre lot, it is all made out of redwood framing, and also is pure 2x4 literal measurements. Nothing like the old construction. We also built a 1100 sqft 4 car garage/workshop on the property, My wife and I designed it and built it to match the house perfectly, we did it all ourselves, Amish barn raising style (just needed extra help when smoothing the concrete foundation)

We love fixing up the disappearing old style elegant houses, but personally, all the interior detail is just too time consuming and tiring to fix back to original..... whew!....

Let us know if you'd like help, it could be a lot of fun!

 

[Lunchbox2]

Everybody has an opinion I guess, so here's mine.... I lived in Wisconsin for 9 years, and the last winter I was there we got over 100" of snow. So I can say I have a fair amount of experience driving in snow. I built this explorer to get me around. I put a HP Dana 44 up front (coil sprung solid axle), and built the 8.8 out back....



I put a Powertraxx No-slip in the back, and a detroit truetrac in the front. It was sitting on 33x12.50x15 Dayton Timberline M/T's. Once it snowed, trying to drive in 2wd was stupid because the M/T's didn't have any siping and they wouldn't grip enough to turn. But once I locked it into 4wd, it went absolutely ANYWHERE I pointed it. The No-Slip was locked-up all of the time basically, and I never had a problem, I loved it actually.

I'm very comfortable driving a "posi" though... I grew up riding four-wheelers, driving RWD cars on gravel roads (dukes of hazard style), and doing big smokey burnouts in my hot rod trucks. So maybe it's because I have more experience throwing vehicles around? IDK...

My current build is a 4wd shorty van on tons and 35's, and it's getting a detroit locker in the rear, and a truetrac up front. I really loved the truetrac, you could never tell it was there, until you started hanging the hoops. But even then, a quick jab of the brakes and they'd lock up. So again, I loved having a locker in the snow. I think it's more of what kind of driver you are... The main thing is to slow the **** down and pay attention to what you're doing...

Oh... I'm moving to colorado, and this van is being built to take me there....

 

[Rockhounder]

Just an update, It looks like I will be able to give a review of how the Truetrac works on my suburban in a couple of weeks. Just need to schedule a time when we can get the truck into the shop and have it installed.

 

[underdrive]

I'm very comfortable driving a "posi" though... I grew up riding four-wheelers, driving RWD cars on gravel roads (dukes of hazard style), and doing big smokey burnouts in my hot rod trucks. So maybe it's because I have more experience throwing vehicles around? IDK...

You got it! They say practice makes perfect and this is most definitely one such situation - I wouldn't expect anyone who's been driving FWD vehicles all their life to be able to handle a RWD coming out of control on them, especially around a curve.

The main thing is to slow the **** down and pay attention to what you're doing...

And then there is that. Last winter I got to extract someone who had literally buried themselves into a snow bank, unspooled both winches nearly all the way to be able to reach their car while anchoring myself to an oversized telephone/powerline pole on the other side of the road... The irony is I kissed the very same snow bank like the day before (note to self: avoid using the exhaust brake in low gear if you think there may be some ice under the snow, or at the very least shift into 4x4 beforehand), however all I managed to accomplish was pack some snow in and around the front fairlead. The aforementioned folks on the other hand, they must have been flying!

Do you happen to have build threads on the Exploder and the van somewhere, even if they're on a different site?

 

[Lunchbox2]

You got it! They say practice makes perfect and this is most definitely one such situation - I wouldn't expect anyone who's been driving FWD vehicles all their life to be able to handle a RWD coming out of control on them, especially around a curve.



And then there is that. Last winter I got to extract someone who had literally buried themselves into a snow bank, unspooled both winches nearly all the way to be able to reach their car while anchoring myself to an oversized telephone/powerline pole on the other side of the road... The irony is I kissed the very same snow bank like the day before (note to self: avoid using the exhaust brake in low gear if you think there may be some ice under the snow, or at the very least shift into 4x4 beforehand), however all I managed to accomplish was pack some snow in and around the front fairlead. The aforementioned folks on the other hand, they must have been flying!

Do you happen to have build threads on the Exploder and the van somewhere, even if they're on a different site?

I don't have a build on the exploder. That was 10 years ago almost, and I just wasn't into all that back then, just build and wheel. I did find a bunch of old pics of me flexin' it out though, I'll have to upload em' one of these days.... But check out my build on the Lunchbox (my van). I also have a build thread on pirate, but it's mostly the same stuff I have on here...

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/148675-The-Lunchbox-Build-4x4-chevy-shorty-van

 

[kojackJKU]

I can't wait to get mine installed. Suburban is going to be first since it's my plow vehicle. that will make a lot of difference in plowability! ha ha.

 

[UltraHDGames]

I really need to get on it for a detroit tru trac now...everyone loves them

 

[underdrive]

I don't have a build on the exploder. That was 10 years ago almost, and I just wasn't into all that back then, just build and wheel. I did find a bunch of old pics of me flexin' it out though, I'll have to upload em' one of these days.... But check out my build on the Lunchbox (my van). I also have a build thread on pirate, but it's mostly the same stuff I have on here...

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/148675-The-Lunchbox-Build-4x4-chevy-shorty-van

Read the van thread, pretty cool stuff! Good luck with it, I'm sure both you and your son will find it quite enjoyable when it's all done.