stormin94

Good Idea. I get a discount at pepboys, too. If I do get this, how much work was it to mod the hose fitting? Will I need to mod it to fill up my tires, and do other misc stuff with it?

stormin94

How hard was it to install the elocker? Is it something that someone who has no experience working on axles can do??? What parts do I take from the donor axle(IE the elocker axle)???

jasond

It will take some time. You need the complete 3rd member from the donor axle. It takes some welding, some grinding, some drilling, and some tapping. Here are some links that I was studying before I started my conversion.

http://home.off-road.com/~kemanuel/elocker/elocker.html

http://www.geocities.com/Baja/Ravine...ffinstall.html

http://67.122.16.97/carterman/4runner/mods/locker/

stormin94

Thanks for the links!!!

My99

The reason a locker is useful is because your open diff will only spin one wheel if traction/resistance is less on that wheel than the other. In the snow and ice this is usually not the case unless you're in the ditch. Lockers are great in mudholes, hillclimbing (with traction) and for use getting over obstacles in low speed situations where you will substantially load/unload one side of the vehicle.

However in the snow and ice (where traction is pretty constant among the tires), if you spin a tire while not going in an exact straight line (this can be a slight corner or even a minor side slope in the road), the ass-end of the truck will immediately try to take off in the direction of the slide because you don't have that one extra tire that is NOT spinning to keep you planted on the road.

Now if you had chains on the truck along with the locker, then you'd be golden with that locker engaged, BECAUSE you can now gain traction and won't lose it laterally.

Trust me, I know it's hard to believe. I found this out quickly on my 99 4Runner that had an E-Locker the first time it snowed.

CJM

YOu dont ned to mod it to fit on the tires. However it comes with this dumb, screw on fitting that needs to be screwed onto the valve stem. I didnt trust the gage on it either from day one and I find it isnt very accurate lol.. I cant be at 120psi...evn off.

What I did was buy a brass coupler fitting, I tried with no avail to find a 1/2 pipe thread so I could tap the hole out bigger (its metric i think) in the compressor. Gave up and switched the coupler fitting to 1/2 and tapped the compressor.

In the end my first attempt failed b/c I was off a bit with the tap and I used gasket maker to seal it up..Its worked since.

I basically made it so I could connect a regular airhose to the compressor, which means I can use many attachements. I tried before all of this to mod the crappy hose too, but that was a waste. Not only does it use an odd nipple that isnt standard size, the hose itself uses these off kinda fittings that are pressed on.

ovrrdrive

When you tried going up this hill, did all 4 tires spin or was it just one on the front and one on the back?

ulfr

The stock airlines are BS. If you want to make the airlines survive rough condition you'd need to get some custom made that are much thicker and more flexible than the stock.

Many many cars have that here in iceland and usually no problems.
Our usual problem with these things is that ice was collecting on the airlines and putting alot of weight on them so they would break apart.

We have it pretty rough here so I don't see it as a great problem. =)
The problem with the E-lock, especially in Iceland and other cold places where you often go through rivers in the winter, that it has the tendency to get stuck because of water and oxidence.

GV27

As long as it's nice and level (side to side), a locker is fine. But if there is some camber to the road and it's really slick a locker will tend to make you slide over to the side. Especially a selectable locker where it's a spool when locked.

The reason I was saying that a locker probably wouldn't have helped is that usually when you have two tracks like that you have pretty even traction. A locker only helps when you have a difference in friction levels. My guess (purely a guess - I wasn't there) is that he was just spinning all four. I've been stuck plenty of times in the snow where I could leave it in gear, get out and watch all four sit there and rotate!

GV27

LOL - that means RUST boys!

ulfr

Hehe, yeah, I'm from Iceland, I'm not that very good at english.
But I'm not meaning rust, I'm talkin' about two different things, water in the motor causing problems with the connectors, and then again, the motor itself, oxing (is that the friggin' right word? I can't remember what's called in english but it's not rust, but more the green stuff you can see on connectors and "white" stuff on steel.

InternetRoadkill

TrueTrac will be the safest type of locker on ice since it's less likely to break the rear end loose and cause a spin. But I'd look at getting a good set of snow tires and get them siped for added traction on ice.

stormin94

I doubt if all four were spinning at once, but as one wheel would gain a little traction, the power switched the the wheel without any, so I just sat there spinning my wheels, I'm not sure exactly how many, but I'd say no more than 3 at once. If that helps figure out this situation.
Sounds like quite the adventure driving in Iceland!!! Interesting with the elocker, I've never heard of that before. Also, with the ARB air locker, could mounting the air lines in a more protected location help prevent the problem of them splitting, or leaking?
WOW!!! You must have been really stuck if you could get out and look at your tires spinning. I wasn't stuck, I just didn't have enough -uh, something(that's what we're trying to figure out here) I'm not sure what I didn't have enough of, but I couldn't make it up that damn hill if I had to....well maybe If I had thought of lowering my tire PSI, that would have probably helped me out A LOT. Thanks again for the responses, so Is there a final verdict??? In other words, what should I focus on first???

notanymore

im pretty sure what you are talking about is oxidization which is pretty much the same thing as rust, but its more general of a term

ovrrdrive

As I figured...

If all 4 weren't spinning (which is almost impossible with front and rear open diffs) then a locker would have gotten you up the hill. People keep saying that if the hill is off camber or leaning a locker would have caused you to fish tail out but I don't get the impression this hill was anything like that. Driving with a locker can be tricky at times and I bet the snow and ice can make it worse, but if you had a selectable locker in your truck you could have turned it on and driven up the hill and then turned it back off. Plain and simple.

In your situation I wouldn't recommend a full time or lunchbox locker because fo the snow and driving on road, but an ARB or Elocker would do the trick for you...

ulfr

Yay, that's what I'm refering to. But it's NOT the same as rust.

idanity

just buy a winch

drew303

Truetrac will handle pretty close to a full locker just not quite as aggressive. I run one in the rear.

It just takes experience to handle lockers in the snow. Mud and snow are very similar when it comes how lockers behave in those types of terrain.

You can still just as easily crab sideways down the slope of a road or hill in snow or mud w/ or without a locker. Remember a moving tire with a steady momentum offers far more traction than a non moving tire. A perfect example is hitting your brakes (non ABS) on any icy/snow/mud condition vs downshifting (smoothly and slowly). You will immediately lose control when your tires lock-up. Which is why ABS was invented (allows rotation of the tire).

As for the original topic. A Limited Slip Differential or a full locker, larger tires w/ bigger voids aired down and chains is all you can do to maximize traction in that situation. Skinny pedal helps and sometimes is the only way (even w/ all of the above mentioned) but thats usually a wreckless and dangerous method IMO. If you need that much tire spin to get up, you might consider not going any further at all.

stormin94

That's what I was thinking on that day, and I also figured that it would be tricky getting back down the hill as well. The hill was off chamber, but was banked properly, but there was also a substantial ditch on either side, so I didn't really want to push it much harder. I'm thinking about the ARB, and maybe just mounting the airlines in a more protected location, and also some tire chains, and better tires(possibly larger). It seems to be that if I had lowered my tire PSI, and had chains then I'd probably be good, but I'd also like some sort of selectable locker for the times that I go 4X4ing, or when I need the traction so I can get to where I need to go. Where is the safest place to mount the ARB airlines? is it possible to mount them within(or very near) the frame rails? Also, I'm not for sure about the ARB, but I think if I had that, then I'd also have an airpump so I could air up my tires after lower PSI was needed, and when I get back on the road. That's one of the only things that give the ARB an edge on the elocker. What's your opinions on that?

ovrrdrive

I've seen the air tubes run in the frame rails before...

I don't think the lines are nearly as vulnerable as you're thinking as long as you run them and secure them right. I see a lot of guys running them that are going over a lot worse terrain than what you're talking about and rarely do I hear of a line breaking.

Onboard air is very handy to have for a number of situations. I went kind of overboard with mine but I liked the kit and wanted reliable air for my train horn. I bought this kit:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Kong-Train-Horn-...QQcmdZViewItem

You could do less, or you could do a lot more. Mine airs back up quickly and the 380C is rated at continuous duty. I can run air tools off of it if I wanted to.