ok how does it work

[..lee..]

been wondering the necessities for diff locks.


with difflocks off if you had 1 wheel on ice would it spin up and strand you.

with rear difflock engaged would it spin up if 1 front wheel was on ice.

with both diff locks i guess no wheel spin on any wheel and drive to all 4 wheels.

have i got this right cause i`ve just confused myself further by tring to write it down.



.

[andysimpson]

been wondering the necessities for diff locks.


with difflocks off if you had 1 wheel on ice would it spin up and strand you.

with rear difflock engaged would it spin up if 1 front wheel was on ice.

with both diff locks i guess no wheel spin on any wheel and drive to all 4 wheels.

have i got this right cause i`ve just confused myself further by tring to write it down.


If 1 rear has no traction power will be sent to a frolnt wheel with least traction.

With rear diff lock on they would need to loose traction before power goes to the front.

With both diff locks on rears have to slip before front wheels get power.


.

[lloyd]

Lets start from scratch.

Open diffs and VC mean which ever wheel on rear has least amount of traction will spin and cause the VC to engage and move power to front axle. Then which ever wheel on front axle has least amount of traction will also spin and forward momentum will stop.

Rear dif locked means both rear wheels are locked together and turn at same speed. When both rear wheels loose traction VC engages and power to front is same as rear, one wheel spins and froward momentum stops.

Front and rear locked and vc means both wheels on both axles are locked side to side and vc is only slip in system. Again rear slips causing vc to engage and front both front wheels loose traction and momentum will stop. If you leave diff locks off and you loose traction only one wheel will usually spin on each axle and you can still have control of vehicle because it's till going in a straight line, not sliding out from under you.

In icy/snowy conditions, DO NOT engage lockers because if you do when you loose traction the axle engaged will loose all control because BOTH wheels are slipping... Like trying to ice scate with no scates.

The same applies to driving on wet grass or in mud. If you are on a sidehill and have locker engaged and wheels spin, you will be sliding that axle downhill much faster then if lockers are not engaged and only one wheel spins (usually only the uphill one).

I speak from years of experience driving in severe winter conditions and offroading with 4x4s. Limited slip diffs, power lockers, positraction, etc are double edged swords. Give you more traction to keep moving, but make it much harder to control when wheels/tires do start spinning. Especially in icy conditions. Selectable lockers like syncro have are the best choice because you can leave them in open/unlocked for slick driving conditions.

Hope that helps explain it.

Lloyd

[peasant]

Difflocks should only be used to compensate for the effects of axle articulation ...i.e when the ground is so bumpy that you have one or two tyres not in touch with the surface. As the T3 has very little axle articulation (due to limited suspension travel) a tiny bump is enough to loose contact on two wheels (one front, one rear) and stops forward motion.

As lloyd says, you want to lay off the lockers in slippery conditions, they are for slow climbing over lumps and bumps only.



As for the tiny bump ...

The little grassy hump that I drive one of my frontweels up on about once a month to test VC and lockers is only about 30 cm high.
One front wheel on that hump is enough to lose traction one the other front wheel and the opposite rear on a otherwise gravely surface

[Hacksawbob]

Thanks Lloyd thats a good exp to put on the wiki,Can anyone add to it?

never thought about the cross slope implications of locks on. We (I) get so little snow to really check them out in all conditions and situations. The last time was two years ago when I got up early specifically to drive the van on fresh falls, I left the locks off and it drove superbly! A friend of our came to visit a couple of months back from Canada and she was mentioning how inexperienced cold weather drivers from the states got into grief North of the border by over reliance on 4WD systems to get them through.

[peasant]

slightly OT ...but what most 4WD drivers tend to forget/ignore is the fact that when it comes to roadholding and more importantly breaking, ALL cars are 4WD/AWD anyway.

You see them shooting up the hill in snowy conditions, smirking at their struggeling 2WD colleagues only to find they shot off the road on the downhill bit

[..lee..]

thank guys good info there, confirmed what i thought really except what lloyd wrote.

good point about locked axles sliding out on inclined traverses something i`d not thought of but very important.

getting to the point though my syncro not having a front locking diff doesn`t seem to be a major problem for generall offroading.

anybody think it would be a worthwhile addition or should i leave as is for now,there is so much else to do i`m now on 2 pages.




syncro`s dont you love em.

[lloyd]

Leave it as is up front. Weight in back means most traction and you need traction mostly going up hills.. so even more is on rear anyway.

[..lee..]

ok cheers, its on with the rest then.