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welded spider gears vs. a locker

I welded my 14 bolt with the 3.73's to see if it would hold/break and it's holding fine. I'm considering leaving them in there when I get around to installing the 5.13's I have. I've gone as far as power braking my 44's on dry pavement to full throttle blasts over rocks and fallen trees. There isn't much of a difference turning on pavement except for the chirping of the tires, I had a detroit (old stlye, not the newer "quiet" version) and it would throw me all over the road as it locked and unlocked on the highway or anytime I gave it gas hard after a turn. I'm going with a full spool in my D60 just because I like the way it works (no moving parts). If I break the shafts or u-joints, I'll upgrade those too...
 
TruckNutzDude said:
I welded my 14 bolt with the 3.73's to see if it would hold/break and it's holding fine. I'm considering leaving them in there when I get around to installing the 5.13's I have. I've gone as far as power braking my 44's on dry pavement to full throttle blasts over rocks and fallen trees. There isn't much of a difference turning on pavement except for the chirping of the tires, I had a detroit (old stlye, not the newer "quiet" version) and it would throw me all over the road as it locked and unlocked on the highway or anytime I gave it gas hard after a turn. I'm going with a full spool in my D60 just because I like the way it works (no moving parts). If I break the shafts or u-joints, I'll upgrade those too...
Click to expand...

can you explain about the locking and unlocking while on the high way? i've never heard of that problem before. makes me seriously want selectable lockers, period. interesting.

colby
 
If you are going to do a decent amount of onroad driving then get a locker. If it is mainly offroad then just weld them.

Harley
 
i've gotten beyond what my decision is - which is to just save up and when i change my gear ratio, put in some kind of selectable locker. i'm more interested now, however, in the theory behind these things - thus my question about why the dude above wrote that his truck gets a little crazy on the highway. i guess i'm just trying to increase my knowledge base, if you will. :)

colby
 
Detroits have some minor quirks. These quirks are mostly only noticable with a manual transmission. One of these quirks is called "Locker induced lane change". :D

It's a phenomenon I can't explain readily but the way it works is like this: On the gas the truck will seem to pull a little left, and as soon as you take your foot off the gas that 'bias' is suddenly gone and the truck will head to the right a little until you correct for it. It took me about two or three days driving it to forget about it completely. I now make the slight corrections without concious thought. It will do it slightly through each gear...again it's very slight but until you get used to it you do notice it. (similar to torque steer in a front drive car...but not as pronounced)

Another detroit quirk is 'the big bang'. Because it can only unlock when there is little to no power being applied you can accumulate a bit of stess between the two tires. Mostly the tires will just chirp in that situation...but sometimes you'll be pulling up to a red light and that stress will just be sitting there waiting...and as soon as you apply a bit of throttle when the light changes you'll get a big bang from the detroit. First time you hear it you'll think you just dropped the tranny. The detroit has a fair amount of backlash by design...and what it's just done is used all the backlash at once releasing the 'stress'.

FWIW I ran my Jimmy welded for over 2 years and close to 25,000 miles. I hated the turning radius, and it alwyas felt hard on the truck to turn sharply. You could hear all sorts of weird creaking, banging and groaning from everywhere. Tire wear was brutal.

With the detroit it is 10X more civilized, just as predictable, and second to nothing off road.

Selectable is a cool idea, but one of the quirks is unreliability...and to me that is not acceptable.

Rene
 
i appreciate the feedback - and, ofcourse, it again gives me more to consider for future mods. thanks.

colby
 
I know lots of folks weld their gears, BUT this can and does change the strength of the gears in question, because of the heat applied. As for the 203 case, in my 79 Dodge, I had to pull the front shaft cause of a junk CV joint. The vehicle would not move in 4 HI. 4 Loc locks the front and rear outputs together, that is how I had to drive mine till the front shaft got fixed. I know yours has been converted, so this doesn't apply to yours. I helped a friend put in a "Soft Locker" when they first came out. It was hit and miss on sharp turns, but still better than a spool or old style locker.
 
there are electric lockers (eaton) and i know there are manual lockers that have some kind of a lever in the cab connected to a cable, but i don't know any brands.

colby stephens.
 
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