im not tryin to hijack the thread, but jason: right now i have a 2wd that im tryin to decide what to do with. within a year or so it will be a 4x4. its my Daily Driver so i dont want a locker in it all the time, as i dont have the money for tires all the time. the ARB would be good because you can lock it in and out. but i was thinkin an LS because its good for on road use and some off road. if you were in my shoes what would you do?

 

I think a regular locker is fine on the street once you get used to driving it. Like anything it takes practice. I drove a friends truck with a locker and it squealed and screeched around every corner. He drove it and it doesn't make a sound. Once I figured out how to properly accelerate I had no problems with it and everything was smooth as could be.

ARB's are a great idea but if you don't have money for tires can you afford the extra $500 expense an air locker will cost, by the time you buy it and add a compressor? Not sure which axle you have but you may want to check on the Detroit Electrac, selectable like the ARB but electrically controlled so you don't have to buy a compressor. Still very pricey.

Personally I think a LS would be a waste of money. It won't provide a huge difference off road.

 

i've got the 8.8, just bought a 10.25, still undecided if im gonna put it in or not. for example, where i go to the lake and put in the boat. its hella hard to pull it out, kinda steep and tires spin, blah blah. i can get the at's to last 60k, but if it were down to a set of tires a year, that would be expencive. within a few months im gonna buy my dads car from him when he gets a truck and use that for my Daily Driver ( i think at least), just looking for practical use as even with the car as a DD the truck would see 70% road and 30% off. when i get the SAS done, thats a differnt story.

 

Again, if you know how to drive with lockers you won't be putting much more wear on your tires than you are now. When people talk about tire wear with lockers it's because when you are turning with your wheels locked your inner tire is trying to turn as fast as your outer, esentially doing a burnout around the corner (not exactly, but you get the idea). But a locker will only engage when you're accelerating. So all you need to do is let off the gas when you come into your turn and GENTLY accelarate out of it. If you do this it will opperate like an open diff and your wheels will experience no extra wear. Only reason it would lock up is if you romped on the gas while turning.

Otherwise selectables are awesome but it all depends on how much $$ you want to dump into it.

 

i understand what you mean, i think it would be worth the extra for the selectable, just so there i sa choice. thanks ivan

 

ivan - I did get a lot better driving with the powertrax I had so it didn't squeal tires, but they again, I still wore out tires because it was just cool to drag your inside tire around sharp turns

 

Hahaha! I know what you mean. But we can't blame our bald tires on anything but our own stupidity. It's just like anything, takes practice. Same as learning to drive a stick. Sure, you probably eat up half the life of your clutch in the first 3 or 4 days when you first learn to drive. Once you get the hang of it you'll drive another 5 years before you finish it off.

If your pockets are deep enough get a selectable locker. I would.

 

Hehe. Selectable is the way to go if you tow or its a DD. Detroits or spool are great if you don't mind getting half the life out of your tires and you don't have to tow very much. Even towing a little sucks with a locker, especially when you are making a turn out of a gravel road on a small grade.. your rear wants to straighten up with the front and trailer..

Electrac are cool, but I think they'd suck for the front, especially if you drive on the street with ice/snow. I'd love to have on in the back, since limited slip makes everything better when driving on the street (imho).

 

Why not a locker in the front?
That way it is only engaged when the hubs are engaged?

 

The Electrac is Lim-slip when un-locked.

 

The difference is that with the ARB you have two choices,
A) open
B) spooled

Neither are good on the street. Spools handle goofy, and wear tires out(I know, I own one) Open diffs suck for driving around, espesialy when it's snowing or raining.. no traction.

thats why I would go with a detriot, atleast you have traction all the time.

Now if the ARB had the option of either
A)limited slip, or
B) spooled
Then I would want one for sure, of course thats what the E-locker allready is.

As for tire wear, there is NO WAY a locker is going to impact your tire wear, the only thing that Impacts it YOUR RIGHT FOOT. If you drive like granny all day long, your going to get 60K out of your tires... But it like a hot rod, so the rear tires never quit smoking, while going sideways through the corners, then yeah, your going to only get 20K from your tires.

The other problem with threads about lockers/spools/lincoln lockers, is that 90% of the people who voice their opinions have NO real world expirance, just stuff they have heard 2nd or 3rd hand..

 

I've never driven with a spool. I have driven with a locker on my DD. Perhaps maybe since I had a manual or maybe I lack finesse or maybe the powertrax I have isn't as good as a detroit, but anytime you made a sharp turn (ie 90 degree turn onto the street), you either had to slip the clutch, leave the rear-end bang in and out (probably not good for the rearend), or hit the gas and leave the tire(s) take the brunt of the turn (at least tires are easier to fix than a clutch or a broken rear).

I do think the tire would wear a little bit more than normal with a locker if you take it easy, and you'd probably get better tire mileage if you drive on the freeway. You will get a lot less mileage out of a tire if you don't take it easy. I have a set of Durango LTs to prove it as well. (The latter part, that is).

If you do a lot of city driving (turns / stops / etc), its harder with a locker, and harder on your tires, especially if you have to 'get it' to get in the lane with traffic.

 

most of it's due to having a stick, plus the actual backlash of a locker. From what I have heard a full case detriot has more backlash than the powertrax. Any driveline slop adds to this. My truck has a good 1/4 turn(serriously) of slop in the driveline, between the ring and pinion, pinion yoke, DS yoke, etc. I'm sure if I had a locker, mine would be clanking and banging all over the place as well.

Of course the clankin, banging, clicking, popping, is normal for a locker, it's just how they operate. Some are louder than others.

 

Although I'll always stick to my tune that a spool isn't the right choice on the street for most people, a huge advantage is that they are consistant. Once you learn how they handle its very predictable. You have to learn how to drive with a detroit too (like Ivan mentioned), but you can still have those suprise engagements.

 

wow a 1/4 turn? that sucks. My 9" with the powertrax had about a good 1/2" of turn in the yoke, and I thought that was too much..

I put 80-140W synethic redline in my diff, the noise wasn't bad, but you felt it through the shifter.

pro- If I had an all-trail truck (ie the only road the truck sees is when you drive it to the trail), I'd have a spool in the back, and probably a detroit in the front.

However, the truck I drive gets used for: towing, hauling gravel, 4wheeling, and a big part is western PA snow and ice. Spool+ice=bad (at least IMHO).

I'd like to have a selectable lim-slip/locker in the back, and a selectable locker/open in the front. Since tractech probably isn't making an electrac for a sterling, i'll probably end up having ARBs front and rear, since I plan on adding onboard air soon after I get my truck ready for inspection. It's not my DD, i just use it enough that a full detroit would really get on my nerves if I used it enough.