hey, So ive got my 98 tacoma jammed in my garage. ive had a few scrapes and bangs so ive purchased the trail gear super armour pac, some billstien 5100s, my header is cracked decided to go with a pacesetter header from wheelers offroad (is this a good choice? 1/3rd the price of a mini header) my brakes are f*#ked so doing the tundra swap. now realizing all this is pointless with out a locker! which type should i go with? I have heard the TRD e-lockers corode away into nothing rather fast, is this true? any info will be appreciated. thanks

 

The biggest benefit of the stock toyota locker is that it can be done inexpensively. $1 to $2K if you put an ARB on, depending on how much of the work you do yourself. If you don't drive on snow/ice, an Aussie is a good & inexpensive choice.

 

ARB all the way.

If you didn't drive hardly any on the street, a detroit could be a cheaper, equally effective choice.

But, I'm one of the few who would rather wait and save up a little more than go cheap on an auto-locker.

 

I've had the Aussie locker in my rear before, which is an auto. Driving mostly on pavement for about a year caused the springs internally to break, keeping it fully locked. I wouldn't go back to an auto locker again unless it was in a dedicated trail rig.

I've since gone to a factory E locker, and it has been great. It's not gonna be any more rust prone than a normal open diff, both diffs are pretty much identical on the outside besides the actuator on the E locker. I don't know where people would get that idea.

 

I ended up buying an axle with the elocker in it from a junk yard and paid a shop to rebuild the axle and swap it out. It ended up being way cheaper than anything else that was comparable.

 

hey thanks for all the feed back! had to jet to the boonies for work but am back to work on my own stuff now, ya so it seems an air locker is best but because of funds im probably gonna go with an elocker for now and hope it holds up, havent found much negative feed back on it cept for one junk yard guy who said their all pretty coroded by the time he gets them. so ill just have to find a good one! Ill post the install when i get around to doing it.

 

just weld it.


and yes that is a joke

 

detroit all the way.

with real wheeling elockers suck (blown up 2). Arb's are nice, but not worth the extra $ unless locking the front.

 

I daily drive my 1st gen with aussies front and rear. About 20k miles on them without issue.
Obviously the hubs are turned in on the street, but sure is nice offroad.
They may not be ideal, but its also not that bad. Some clicking around corners and gotta push the clutch in if you want to coast around corners that are sharp and slow.

 

I use a spartan and I like it a lot . It bucks on the throttle going around corners but they all do . Its nice off road though

 

if your going to do any driving on snow/ice, avoid any of the auto lockers(detroit/power trax). they are extremely difficult to control on ice. an arb or elocker would be fine, just keep it unlocked unless you want some serious brown pants syndrome.

 

Bah, Detroits are great in the snow, you just need to know how to drive with them. They ARE less forgiving than an open diff if you get too heavy with the skinny pedal. All my B.P.S. moments were due to my stupidity or overuse of throttle, not the detroit's fault. You have to change up your driving style a bit but the detroit was one of the best mods I've done to the truck. But that's just my opinion.