If you plan on staying with 33" tires just keep the gov lock. It is a locker and you wont gain much buy spending a bunch of money on a detroit.
Wrong. A locker locks up and stays locked up when you lift a tire or have a very large amount of traction on one side. A Grenade Lock, like a limited slip, will disengage when you lift a tire or are trying to claw up a rock face or something (when the torque overloads it's clutches/gears/etc). Lemme show you how I know this:
That was my '92 Blazer K1500 with the G80 Grenade Lock in a 10 bolt. About 75k on the time and well maintained.
Right there I was stuck. We could get to that position and no further. Every time we backed out and tried to crawl over that position as soon as the passenger side rear touched nothing but air it would just spin like mad. When we found a slightly better line and managed to keep both rear tires somewhat planted the Grenade Lock would disengage one tire and the one with the least traction would start to spin on the rock and the truck would fall backwards off the rock.
We eventually got through it by basically jumping the rock and making me hear noises and sounds that I REALLY didn't want to hear from my truck. My Ranger or Big Ugly with true lockers would have walked right over that situation.
& Or setting up an open carrier just to put a lockrite in.
Good point. If he were to put a locker in his money would be better spent on a Detroit since he'd have the whole thing apart anyways.
It sounds like your gov lock is working rite if the tire goes only 1/2 to 1 revolution before it locks up. Just be careful with those full throttle lock ups.
Its better to ease the gov lock into locking.... Then nail it.
Again, something to worry about with Grenade Locks...their propensity for blowing up under hard pressure. It's a crappy design and just isn't up to hard wheeling, big tires, and powerful engines or any combination of those.
I know people who have driven trucks around with them and 38's and thought they were the bomb and also people who had them blow up with stock or 33" tires.
Get some MT tires. That will improve your whole outlook on your truck.
Then if you want more traction put in a powertrax no slip or an Aussie locker in the front. They are a easy install that just replaces the spiders and dont have to set up the gears.
I run a gov-bomb rear and a Powertrax no slip locker in the front with 33"MT tires. I really like the combo.
That's part of the thing there. A truck with good tires can do so much more than a truck with iffy tires offroad.
Your locked front diff and MT's are also pulling some of the traction burden away from the G80 and it's weaknesses. If I had a locked front diff in the situation above I would have pulled right through it with one of the rear tires spinning away happily.
Okay, we've meandered a bit here but back on topic:
Like mentioned above get some MT's.
Remember you have a rear diff not known for longevity.
If your interests ever go beyond two tracks in the woods and mud holes consider upgrading that rear diff.
If you ever start to go really big in the tires...see line above.
If the rear axle ever starts doing weird things while turning or what not definitely start exploring your options.
Drive it nice, get some better tires, and pay attention and you should be okay for a while...how long...who can say?
