In reply to ebonyandivory:
I'm going to guess that the Jeep had big sidewalls that had a bit of give to absorb the binding in the axle. For a while when I was a kid my parents daily drove a car with a welded rear, big block Chevy and 4:56 gears. It wasn't an undrivable death trap but it was enough of a pain in the ass that my mother still complains about it. That said if I was a kid I would cope with the headaches to have the locked rear but it is not necessarily the best answer. If I was going to go through the trouble to pull the rear apart I would try to save the extra money for a limited slip instead of the mini spool.
Super Swampers LTB's at street pressures have incredibly stiff sidewalls. In fact, to see any bulge, I'd be at ~3 psi. Max load of each tire was over 2,300 lbs.
I'm just saying that spool was the best money I ever spent and the traction and wet/snow driving was so predictable and made that XJ a pleasure to drive.
To the OP, just make sure your taking the pro's and con's of a spool from people that actually drove one for any length of time and not "I heard" stories.
All that said, the limited slip in my '95 F150 is tight enough that I chirp inside tire under hard acceleration so a limited slip would suit your purpose just fine.
Just want to dispel some of the horror stories out there. Both about the Spool and the 10-bolt
ebonyandivory wrote:
GameboyRMH wrote:
Spools are absolutely uncivilized on the street.
Serious question: what vehicle did you have a spool in? How many miles did you drive it? Under what conditions?
I ask because I've put thousands of miles on a spool and your comment above couldn't be less accurate from what I've experienced.
I'm not trying to be confrontational, I just want to try to figure out how I was so lucky because I hear mostly second-hand nightmare stories.
I have an automatic locker in the rear of my Samurai which I DD most of the time. This locker rarely unlocks, probably because of my big-backspace wheel setup.
It's worn out my rear axle bearings faster than usual but I haven't broken any axles. It does chirp around virtually every corner though, and you can really feel that you're dragging the rear axle at low speeds. I'd call that kind of behavior uncivilized. I didn't mean to say it made the car hard to control, it doesn't.
In reply to GameboyRMH:
Just to clarify: the rear wheel bearings were installed new with that locker? Or were they already on their way out?
The short wheelbase of Samurais will obviously exaggerate all this too.
Those Samurai wheel bearings aren't exactly robust. That being said, I've only had to replace front wheel bearings in the three Samurais I've owned.
Edit: please forgive me if my posts come off as nasty. That happens sometimes and I want to avoid that!
I changed wheel bearings a bit before installing the locker, which I think was in 2010? And then again last year. So I'm going through about 2 sets of rear bearings for every set of front bearings.
But it does see a lot of serious offroading (like 4-6 offroad rallies a year and a couple of arena trial-driving/mudding events) so it's not an average use case.
It's great for offroad, sometimes I go onto a trail and the only realize that I forgot to go into 4WD when I come to a complete stop and can't move off, or when I go back on the street and see that I'm already in 2WD, and think "so that's why the back felt loose."
In reply to GameboyRMH:
Isn't it amazing when two rear wheels actually get full power?!
I Was taking my Samurais (and XJ's) places that amazed even ME in 2wd.
Edit: just realized I hijacked this thread, sorry G-Body!
I've decided to save up for a truetrac. Thanks, everyone!
