Posted by Ben on December 12, 00 at 09:59:05:
In Reply to: Re: Locking Diff posted by Lee Correll on December 12, 00 at 08:52:30:
: I was driving on snow and ice. The parking lot had some dry spots in it here and there. When I hit the dry spots it bucked like mad, when it hit the snow again it didn't even turn at all - it just pushed the front end. Keep in mind this is all while going very slow (don't want to hit any pedestrians).
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I've had that "push" happen to all of my 4x4's and think that the rears are either still on pavement while the fronts are on slippery stuff and/or the fronts are turning and going in different radii than the rears, which gives the rear two tires against the fronts singles in different tracks. This is common for front lockers, as the locker tries to keep both on same rev's while they want to go at different revs (plowed right off the road with my Toyota FJ40 which had a front locker).
On the road everything is fine even if there was a dry spot on a curve. Of course a slow turn in a parking lot is much sharper than a curve while doing 30mph. It sounds like I need to take it out of 4x4 when I get to a parking lot. Does everyone else do this? I've been driving 4x4's for years and never had one buck so bad I had to put it in 2x just to park! I guess I just expected the newer truck to be smoother than my old trucks - I must have expected too much. Now I've got to figure out how to keep my wife from finding this out or I'll be trading the Suburban for one of those junky all wheel drive minivans.
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Yuk! Why trade *down*. Agree with FatBoy & Mike and think you should consider managing by switching from 4x4 to 2x4. It's only a push button if you have the electrical or lever if you have the manual transfer case controls.
OBTW, sometimes there's so much binding just switching from 4x4 to 2x4 doesn't work. You have go in reverse for a few feet to unwind enough to allow the gears to disengage.
-Ben