Posted by Charlie on Thursday, May 03, 2001 at 1:26PM :
In Reply to: Anthony's accident - a thought posted by Russ on Thursday, May 03, 2001 at 12:18PM :
You guys, if I were a lawyer, I'd tell you to "be careful". That's quite a hypothesis.
As I look out my window on May 3, it's snowing. All three of the vehicles I usually drive have rear autolockers, one has a front Lockright also. One of them has a 444 cubic inch engine with a turbo and supposedly puts out 504 ft-lb. That one has a had a rear Detroit for 11 years and I have driven from Alaska to La Paz, Baja Calif. and back. I cannot discern ANY noticeable effect on dry or wet pavement with this vehicle except for slightly increased engine rpm on full lock turns due to the outside wheel completely unlocking. Even on ice it's rare to feel wheelspin 4th or 5th; if I do, I'm going too fast and I slow down and put it in 4WD.
Anthony lived in Southern California. It does snow in the mountains there but not usually in May. Do you know if Anthony was burning wheelies in his pickup? In high speed? That's sort of the implication considering the climate down there. We all know there's a bit of traffic in that area. I think before people start making implications that someone's tragic untimely demise was possibly related to an auto part he discussed with us, you should consider this is a public forum.
This isn't the first time I've seen something like this about lockers, but it may be the most full of "low probability unsubstantiated hypotheses", to use a polite and delicate term.
The funny thing about lockers in places like Alaska and Canada certainly is that those of use that have them in the rear (which is most avid offroaders) know that when the rear end starts breaking loose, we know it's time to do two things: shift into 4WD and slow down some. That applies to you, Russ. Don't succumb to machismo ideas about not using 4WD on an icy road.
But I don't worry about my lockers either on dry pavement or in the rain. In 11 years and about 90,000 miles I haven't even had any near misses attributable to rear end fishtailing; in Anchorage that's too much for just good luck.
Charlie
PS: On the other hand if a Lockright is installed incorrectly it can act like a spool. That CAN cause problems on dry pavement. It's amazing, people dump poo-poo all over autolockers but when some guy says he's building a truck with a "Lincoln Locker" because he's too cheap to spend $300 for a Lockright or $600 for a Detroit, nobody says a thing!!
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