mini spool to make a posi-traction ?

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im considering turing a short bed 80's chevy truck into a light offroad vehicle for hunting and such... a coworker told me they have a mini spool in a similiar setup and one in his drag car.........

ive never heard of them, so im just wondering if anyone has any input on them.

i live in a small town in the desert. no interstate driving, the longest distance this truck will ever go is 2 hrs away ( paved road way ) on a 65 mph hoghway
 
A Spool is a Spool, It locks both axles together, Don't try to make Tight/Fast turns on pavement.

A Mini Spool installs in the place of the Spider Gears in the Stock Carrier, A Full Spool is the entire Carrier.

Back in the day before Mini Spools we would weld the Spider Gears together with a Arc Welder.
 
not for street use. A mini spool physically locks the two axles together. There will be no diff action at all. Tires will scrub in turns and hard on axles if used on the street with turns. Mainly used in dirt track racing and drag racing.
 
You would be miserable. If you're on a muddy trail with any sideways incline the rear end will kick out sideways and there won't be one tire with traction to save you.

Better off getting tire chains and a winch.
 
My Nissan has a really tight LSD, and ploughs, chirps and screeches in acrparks over painted lines...a spool is heaps worse.

I'd go a lunchbox locker...
 
I'd get a "soft posi" or an air-locker. Soft posi (many brands) will only transfer about 30% of the torque if one wheel is spinning. Hard locker will transfer like 90~100% They can be as miserable as a spool on wet streets and in the mud.

Air locker and a dive bottle will let you lock when you want and drive open the rest of the time
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Your biggest deal will be no weight in the rear so it will not "dig"
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I'd put a sheet of 1/4" to 1/2" diamond plate in the bed bolted down. Loose the front sway bar, and the truck will go a lot of places. The steel plate will add weight over the driving axle and keep the center of gravity low so it will side-hill
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Articulation and weight bias towards the driving axle will take you a long ways. Desert racers run rear drive and they go forever. But their trucks are set up with rear bias so they have traction all the time
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Originally Posted By: Shannow

I'd go a lunchbox locker...


+1 Cheap, easy to install and won't have the binding issues of a mini spool.

www.powertrax.com

I only have experience with the Lock-Right, but the No-slip version is supposed to be smoother.
 
There's a (AFAIK exclusively British) motorsport called "trials", which involves driving up muddy hills.



Some of the classes use "twiddle brakes" with RWD. (I don't know the details of the classes, but I don't think twiddle breaks are allowed for the production cars in the above video)

Twiddle brakes are basically a split handbrake with a lever for each wheel. This allows you to selectively brake a spinning wheel which feeds drive over to the other side to keep you moving. Simple and cheep to implement.

I think these "sporting trial" purpose-built cars use twiddle brakes, but I can't see why they couldn't be fitted to any RWD vehicle.
 
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