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Detroit LSD or Locker?

3K views 35 replies 12 participants last post by  Sinister6 
#1 · (Edited)
I just purchased 4.56 gears for my TJ from Randy's!

I have a 2003 with D44/3.73 gears. I got the complete regear set with the thick cut ring for the D44.

I would like to get a limited slip back there. (I have a Spartan in the front with a Tera2Lo kit in the TC. The Spartan will be moving into the new setup.)

So I have always been a fan of the Detroit stuff and want a TrueTrac. But WHAT PART NUMBER?

I saw on Quadratec the one I want with "blah blah 3.73 and numerically lower gears" and am assuming they mean higher ratios (lower numbers) like 3.07 and such, rather than actual lower gearing like 4.56? If that is the case they do not seem to have one for the D44 for 4.56 gears, so far as I could find by looking at all of them.

What do I need to buy, and from whom? I would be happy with Randy's or ECGS. I have purchased from both in the past and liked the service and all that.

Any ideas on the specific part number? I am now off to the Eaton site to see if I can find what I need there.

Finally - Have I screwed up by not buying the correct carrier for the D44 and swapping in the thick cut ring gear? Will this affect which TrueTrac part number I need to get?

Thanks for any help from any of you who have done this!
 
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#7 · (Edited)
The wife and I both drive the old TJ regularly, and we use it for a lot of off-roading but cannot afford an air locker at this moment. I figured that a Spartan in the front with a Teraflex 2Low kit and a good LSD in the rear would be about all I would ever need off road.

If my skills develop enough to tackle the Rubicon and/or Moab I am wondering if this setup will be adequate. We are looking at visiting these Jeep Meccas in about two or three years.

I have a D30 front with alloy shafts, the upgraded Spicer U-joints, better brakes, the Spartan locker and will have Yukon 4.56 gears soon. I have the Currie UCA axle-end bushing weld-in kit. No truss or C gussets.

I have Metalcloak arms all around, as well as track bars and springs, OME Nitrochargers, extended brake lines, ZJ steering (that will eventually become the Teraflex high steering setup that I tried and liked so much last year) and a clean, rust-free frame to work with.

I have Brown Dog stock height motor mounts and engine brackets.

The D44 is still all stock (3.73) but will have the Yukon 4.56 gearing soon. I could easily swap in alloy shafts before any serious trip and take my old set of stockers as spares, fronts already set up with U-joints and unit bearings, ready to swap in at need.

I have the Teraflex Extreme Short SYE and a DC driveshaft by Tom Wood.

I also have the Novak cable shifter.

The jeep would also get a BL and MML with a tummy tuck before any serious trip out to California or to Utah - again - in two or three years.

So, at some point I could get an ARB for the rear (maybe the front, too) but it will be some time. I am now - finally - all tapped out cash-wise. It will be some time before I can afford any more of this insanity beyond the TrueTrac, which I can get in two weeks.

What do you think? Hold off, doing the re-gear now but keeping the diff open until I can get an ARB system?

You will have to get a trutrac for the smaller carrier since you purchased the thick cut gear.
If you go with this one you will have to send the thick cut gear back and go with the regular cut gear.
THAT was what I needed to know! Thanks! Do you know which specific part number I would need? The D44 one for 3.73 and numerically smaller, yes? This is because of the 3.73 carrier size and has zero to do with the actual gearing?

Will using this smaller one be a bad idea with 4.56 gears?

Send back the thick cut gear and get the larger carrier?

Too many questions... sorry, folks... :pullinghair:
 
#10 ·
With thick cut gears you need a stage 3 carrier, which is the factory 3.73 and numerically lower one (they are also called speed gears in some crowds). For a standard cut you need the stage 4 carrier. The reason is that the pinion gets smaller the lower (numerically higher) the gear ratio is so the ring gear needs to be moved closer to the actual pinion to mesh properly. Thick cut gears have the same tooth pattern as the standard except the gear as a whole is wider (basically a built in spacer) there is no strength difference.
 
#11 · (Edited)
Having had f/r Detroit Truetracs for several years in my first TJ, I'll just say they are next to useless/of no benefit on offroad terrain uneven enough to lift tires off the ground. Yes, even when using the well known technique of applying brake to assist the Truetracs.

That's why I finally gave up on the Truetracs and replaced both with automatic lockers.. a No-Slip lunchbox in front, a Detroit Locker in the rear. HUGE BENEFITS offroad and well behaved on the highway for my daily driver TJ too. The Detroit Locker is very well behaved 99.9% of the time. The .1% it was not was nothing worse than a fun little lurch/waggle.

Costs are similar to buy and install a Detroit Locker vs. the Detroit Truetrac.
 
#14 ·
I have never personally had a lunch box. I do see them on some rigs in my club and it seems like the ones on the front do alright (not always locking when it needs to and not unlocking when it should). The rear ones on the other hand always seem to be broken or they just never engage on the trail and are always engaged on the road.
The detroits on the other hand work soooo much smoother. They lock right when they should (maybe a 1/4 turn of the rear wheels) and unlock most of the time on road except in parking lots.
 
#15 ·
Automatic lockers are normally locked, they only unlock (automatically) for turns. After the turn is completed, they lock back up again. They don't lock up when something like tire slip happens, they are already locked... their normal state is locked. :)
 
#16 ·
Detroit lockers are not for a novice

I had one in my 69 428 stang and its added traction got us to wolf creek ski area on snowy days

But

Just light rain and if you did not get off the gas around a corner when the back end started to slide soon the back end would in front of your direction of travel

It was easy with experience to control the rear slide around a corner with the gas pedal but if young or new to the experience drivers are ever going to drive the vehicle on slippery roadways the Detroit locker can make for serious issues
 
#17 · (Edited)
Detroit lockers are not for a novice
In my personal opinion, that's a ridiculous warning.... every single new owner of a Detroit Locker is a novice when they first get one. As was I and I was an old hand at driving with mine so as to make it well behaved within a few days after its installation. I put over 120k miles on mine and loved it for 119,800 of those miles. The only ones who usually try to make such claims are those who have never personally owned one and only repeat what they've heard from their friend's cousin.

Would I recommend them for someone driving on ice or snow? Nope, but the OP in this thread lives in Mississippi.
 
#18 ·
Well Jerry you are full of it as I did have one so your experience is anecdotal and as any who knows anything about statistics the pleural of anecdote is not data so your statement that only non owners have such concerns is WRONG

And if you plan to lend your jeep to a wife or son or daughter to drive on a rainy day ( it does rain where he lives) a Detroit locker can have disastrous results for for a novice driver on wet roads unless a 180 degree spin rounding a corner is just nothing to you.

A rear limited slip or a selectable locker is much less problematic for a novice driver on a wet or snowy road no matter what Jerry thinks he knows
 
#19 · (Edited)
Very, very experienced driver, same with the wife, no kids. I only lack experience in driving with a spooled rear axle, which will be very simple to rectify once I get my non-DD TJ back up and running. I lived in New York for years while in the Army and did a lot of large truck and bus driving in the snow and ice (and parking a 44 passenger "green weenie" bus in Greenwich Village where the bus wheel track is wider than the space between the curbs was never very much fun, heh, heh, heh...).

I think that Jerry knows more about my situation than I think you realize, Digger. He has answered a lot of my questions this past year or so.

As for your comment about your Detroit, I hardly equate a mustang with a TJ for a locked rear end. That comparison is not valid at all here, IMHO. No one - except you, perhaps - drives a Mustang (a 428, no less!) the same way they drive a TJ. The behavior of an auto locker in a Mustang will not be the same at all as in a TJ if you drive a TJ like a TJ. ;-)

I owned a Mustang, too, with a block that was not as large as yours but still pretty powerful, and I drove it like an idiot because it was a freaking MUSTANG, man! That is how they are supposed to be driven! :thumb:

A TJ driver who takes off from a light like a jackrabbit is more of a jackass than anything else. He should probably invest in a Miata! HAHAHA!!!

I know how to drive very well on ice as we get some here just about ever year. (It got down to 9º [windchill of -4] a few times here last winter, and up to 103º [heat index of 117º] in the summer. Also, I am also almost 50 years old. I have paid more tickets for speeding prior to turning 35 years old than most people will ever get in their life. I learned my lesson by having my wallet emptied on many occasions. I am much more circumspect when I drive these days. I guess the fines, the threats of a suspended license (about 20 years ago) and AGE have made me much more careful. Likewise, I got my TJ in 2004 and learned hard the first few days that it cannot be driven at all like any other vehicle out there due to the very short wheel base, narrow track and top-heavy nature of the beast. So I already drive like I have a locker back there, anyway, except that I use the gas through turns. I remember how to do that correctly, though. So I am sure I will get that back if I opt for an auto locker in the rear.

As I said, my experience with auto lockers is not nonexistent. I have just never owned one, and it has been many years - pre-softlocker, actually - and the Detroit was pretty freaking cool, even in parking lots, where *I* never had it bang on me - at least, not after my first five or six loud turns.

My one concern here is the purported "Detroit Surge" I keep reading about. I did *not* every experience this. I am wondering whether that only happens when you do something stupid. I have consistently read and watched only YOUNG MALES describe this, like only inexperienced drivers who drive like fools seem to have this happen.

If this is the case then I will only have to reacquaint myself with the oddities of these things and I will be like Jerry: problem free. If I have problems that I cannot seem to learn to avoid I will simply remove it and sell it on craigslist and save up for a selectable locker.

Digger, would you think that a selectable in the rear and an auto in the front would be fine? I have read Jerry's opinion on that many times. But he has no experience with the much more budget-friendly Spartan. Do you have any experience with one of these? They seem to be very similar in behavior to an Aussie, which I also have zero experience with.

I may still opt for an OX or an ARB. I prefer the cable over the compressor, personally, but whatever. I will have to wait to get one for some time if I do not opt for the Detroit.

Wait and save or get now? That is my real remaining question now that I have several opinions on the Detroit Locker vs. the TrueTrac in the rear.

Thanks for the information and opinions, guys. Everyone make nice-nice and have a cold one on me! :beerdrinking:
 
#21 ·
An auto locker that only locks when torque is applied to driveshaft is a non issue up front while in two wheel drive

A Detroit locker on daily street driver is not a very ideal situation as the posters in the link I posted expressed.

A selectable front and rear is the best off all worlds

Other viable options include limited slip rear or all open


I believe that wranglers were offended with open a couple different limited slips and selectable lockers but not Detroit lockers for a good reason and my guess is liability and driver safety

I currently own 3 4.0 wranglers
A YJ auto with open diffs front and rear

A rubi 5spd with stock limited/selectable rear and selectable front

A 98 sport 5spd with ARB lockers front and rear all are reliable when it snows at the 7000 plus feet I live at

I would not consider a Detroit locker a viable solution for a family driven vehicle if it rained or snowed as by the time you realize what is happening you are already in trouble
 
#22 ·
1. Not family driven.
2. I already know all this and have posted much of it here in this thread.
3. You started pissing on Jerry with lots of information that is not applicable to my situation.
4. Now you are attempting to piss all over me, too.
5. It seems you are a man on a quest for conflict.

Please take that basket of crap elsewhere, sir. I am not buying. It is insulting to keep trying to teach me something I already know and did not ask for. And you response to Jerry was pretty tacky, too. I do not know your age, but your posts imply that it is probably younger than it is. Please dial it down.
 
#24 · (Edited)
Digger, you have ZERO (!!!!!!) personal experience owning a Wrangler TJ equipped with a Detroit Locker. I drove with a Detroit Locker in my daily-driver Wrangler TJ for over 120,000 miles. You sole Detroit Locker experience is in a 428 street Mustang. Apples and oranges.

And since your claimed bad experience with a Detroit Locker was in your Mustang, read what even your fellow Mustang owners say about it... from Detroit Locker vs. Detroit Soft Locker - Vintage Mustang Forums. They don't even agree with your opinion...

Two quotes from the Mustang owners forum:

"IMHO the Detroit Locker is the way to go, street or track, it is bulletproof, you can't break it and the "harshness" is really nothing. The benefit is there is NO DOUBT your putting power to BOTH WHEELS when you lay into it."

"I'm running an original locker in my FB and have yet to notice it other than the occasional BANG! when navigating tight parking lots. Never even thought about it while I had it on the track!"

Go onto Pirate and try to tell anyone there that Detroit Lockers in Jeeps aren't safe and well behaved on the street, you'll be laughed out of the forum.

When you have extensive personal (!) experience with owning TJ with a Detroit Locker as I do, which you do not, then you can voice a first-hand opinion.

Those of us who actually have Detroit Lockers in our TJs know better than to agree with your Mustang experience. And again, leave out all the BS about snow and ice, the OP lives (again) in Mississippi. And I already mentioned a caution for those who have to drive on ice or snow... which the OP this thread is about doesn't have to worry about.

I'm done here with you, no matter what other angry future apples & oranges claims you try to make about the Detroit Locker.
 
#27 ·
Yes Jerry a shorter wheelbase with a higher center of gravity makes it so much safer when the ass end slides around and catches on a curb Excellent mechanical advice
I can only assume that if you stuck a locker on a Mustang that the only facts being ignored here are that your bad choices are causing you to grind your little axe on a product to cover that up.

Not going to validate your view when it is so closed minded and misinformed. Just because you did something stupid years ago, do not condemn the rest of us as being unable to better handle such equipment by not doing stupid things with it.

You sound less experienced with each post, man.

You are now spamming my thread with your personal agenda. Reported.
 
#28 · (Edited)
Okay everyone get along or I close the thread....

that being said I have had 3 Jeeps with a Detriot Lockers in the rear to include my current one. Here is what I found.

1. Slow speed turn from a stop.. it can sometimes make very loud bang sound.. this is normal. good for freaking out small kids and older persons.

2. In a manual trans shifting gears at a higher speed, you can sometime feel it pull the jeep to the right. Usually only happens when there is a psi difference between the tires.

3. Snow driving.. never had any issues..

4. Don't recall any issues driving in the rain related to the locker, that were so bad it prevented me from buying them for other Jeeps.

Over all its a good unit, has some things to keep an eye on, but to me once you understand what it does and how it acts.. its fine for a daily driver.
 
#31 ·
Lockers that won't unlock on snow or ice cause understeer... because during turns, some lockers can prevent the left and right side tires from rotating at the different RPMs they require... as in the outside tire needs to be able to rotate faster through a turn than the inside tire does. That can cause skids or going straight when you actually have the steering wheel turned left or right. Which is why for people who have to regularly drive on snow or ice in the winter, I recommend selectable lockers.
 
#34 ·
Ok thanks Jerry, your always helpful. That makes sense. I had originally thought that a locker wouldn't be a problem (I thought it would be better) since it would apply the same torque to both wheels. But your point makes sense and probably is more factual than mine.

Would an LSD be better than an open diff?
 
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