Posted by Clint Dixon on Thursday, February 14, 2002 at 11:09AM :
In Reply to: Re: Definately worth it. posted by JD on Thursday, February 14, 2002 at 6:24AM :
John, yes, I installed a locker at that time. This was back when it was known as the All-Trac and was still owned by the inventor John Zentmeyer. It was designed for, and only available on, the Power-Wagons. I do not know how the newer Powertrax units compare to the old original.
The one odd thing that I have noticed since its installation is the tendency of the rear of the truck to loose traction and swing around to the downhill side when trying to drive along the side of a steep offcamber. This is especially noticable when on a wet grassy or snow covered hillside. Without the locker, the tire on the uphill side may loose traction but the downhill side usually does not and it tends to act as a rudder to help guide the truck straight ahead. When driving with a locker equipped rear on a steep slick hillside it works best to try and drive straight up or down and not "sidehill" it.
This same thing can happen on a slick crowned "black top" or asphalt road. The rule I use is if it is slick enough for the rearend to loose traction then I always use four wheel drive. This inherent quirk actually got my wife and I in a heap of trouble years ago when we were driving a Jeep CJ5 and Jeep Cherokee both with limited slip differentials in the rearends. The CJ5 would travel down a crowned road literally sideways indefinately until shifting into four wheel drive. The Cherokee was even more interesting. It caused us to do a full roll in the grader ditch when my wife let off the accelerator while entering an S-curve. Both rear wheels immediatly broke loose on black ice and the world did a sommersault in front of us.
Aside from having to get accustomed to the tendency of the rear wheels to want to do the exact same thing all of the time, the only other nuisances I have noticed are an occasional loud bang from the rear as the gears finally lock or unlock from a bound condition (sounds like an axle shaft breaking), and harder steering on hard surfaces. But, you can go almost everywhere in two wheel drive that you did before in four.
Clint
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