Gary Lewis

That's where I am. But others value the better lighting of the projector versions. To each his own. But, the main point in all of this is that there is junk and there are good options. Out of 16 candidates only 5 made the cut, and they are all expensive.

I was thinking more about this thread and realized that I hadn't commented on this. Stevenscoffee didn't say what type of locker he has. But if it's an automatic locker it will not cause binding. In fact, an automatic locker in a front axle will actually reduce the amount of binding you have when turning in 4WD. Most differentials are really misnamed. "Limited slip" differentials offer a limited amount of grip, while doing nothing to limit slip once the slip starts. And "automatic locking" differentials actually are better considered "automatic unlocking" differentials. Automatic (un)lockers will always freely allow one tire to go faster than the ring gear. So when you are going around a corner it will automatically unlock and let the axles turn separately. And this will happen freely whether you are coasting or accelerating. The only way you can keep it from disengaging is to spin the inside tire. Then the ring gear catches up to the outside tire. With the outside tire not going faster it won't unlock. But it's not like people often say who think you need to get off the power to allow an automatic locker to unlock. It knows nothing about power, all it knows is relative speed. So any time one tire wants to go faster than the ring gear it can. Period. When you go around a curve the front tires track wider than the rear, so the front tires need to turn faster than the rear. But when yo are in 4WD the transfer case (that has no differential) won't allow that so you get some bind. But an open front diff will allow the inside tire to slow down a little while the outside tire goes a little faster. An automatic locker on the other hand won't let the inside tire slow down, although it will allow the outside tire to speed up. So the average speed of the front tires is faster in a curve with an automatic locker. That's why you'll actually get less bind turning with an automatic locker in the front than with an open diff. That said, open diffs protect axles because they will only send as much torque through either axle as the tire with the least traction will support. That can be considerably less torque than the tire with the most traction can support, and a locker will send that higher amount to that tire. That's why it's a lot easier to break axles with a locker. And I've been talking here like I'm a big fan of automatic lockers in a front axle. I'm not, at least in all situations. I think an automatic locker in the front could well be the most effective choice for most serious fourwheeling (better than other types of diffs in the front and better than any type of diff in the rear). But the road manners are a lot worse than with an automatic locker in the rear. At low speeds it's just very significant torque steer as the diff makes the tires try pretty hard to straighten themselves out when you are turning or will make it pull toward the tire with the least traction if there's a significant traction difference. But at higher speeds that torque steer can be deadly. The first time I changed lanes on a snowy freeway in 4WD with an automatic locker in the front, when the left front tire hit the snow between the lanes the truck pulled so abruptly to the left that it had moved 10 feet before I was able to catch and correct it. Fortunately I was trying to change into that lane and knew it was empty. The second (and last) time I changed lanes with the front locker I thought I was ready. I back off the gas quite a bit (just enough to keep speed, not accelerating at all) and the truck only jumped over about 5 feet. I shifted into 2WD at that point. This is deep! I've read it a couple of times and I keep coming back to figure it out. Thanks, Bob!

Trucklite just announced a heated version as well. But I haven't seen the price on them, and if they are like the JW Speaker heated ones at +$100/ea they'll be expensive. We are already talking about $340 for a pair of the unheated ones.

12 MPG if he's lucky. Hope he has stock in the oil business.

As usual, Matt, it is already morning there. On the signal generator, if you dial in 12v peak/peak in sine wave mode and 40 pps you should see a reading of about 600 RPM. Oh wait! That assumes you ground the terminal that says GND. Otherwise you'll be in 6 cyl mode and it should read 800 RPM.

I hope not. But if it does you know who to contact.

Matt - It isn't unusual for the tach not to work in the cold. I've had them do that and then start working when warm. But I don't know why that happens. As for how to test, about the minimum is 600 RPM = 10 Rev/Sec. And at 4 firings/rev you need a minimum of 40 pulses/sec. I don't know what it takes to trigger the tach, but the signal it sees is from the primary side of the coil. It goes to battery voltage and then is pulled down almost to ground. But there is a lot of ringing and the voltage goes to something like 40 volts when the signal is allowed to go back "high". If you have an extra distributor, coil, and ignition module you could spin the dizzy with a drill. But if not, do you have a signal generator? How about an extra vehicle speed sensor from a speed control? That might work as I've seen 15 volts peak/peak on them.

That was QUICK!

I guess I didn't look at the picture closely enough. Now that I have I see that Brutus has the top chrome ones and Big Blue has the longer ones.

Looks good, George. On the vent visors, I'd wondered what difference they make. They were on Big Blue when I got him so I don't have a before & after view. Good to know.

I put Monroe Sensatracs on Dad's truck and they worked really well. Loved them. I have Bilsteins on Big Blue, but mainly because that is what was on there when I got him.

Nice mirrors, but that last set of two at $500 is expensive!

Appears to have ended at $18K.

And, the MPC says: E6TZ 15200-A SEV-Marchal-halogen road lamp (black housing) 86/89 F150/350 — w/roll bar 86/89 R — w/roll bar

An open diff always sends the same amount of torque to both sides. So it almost always will only spin one tire because almost always one tire will spin with less torque than it takes to spin the other one. A rolling tire doesn't like to slide sideways. A spinning tire is already sliding, so it doesn't care which way it slides. So an open diff is definitely best for stability. The good thing about any traction aiding diff is that it will send more torque to the tire with more traction. That lets you put more power to the ground, but it also means that it's likely that you will be able to spin both tires. And if the road is pretty slippery it will be likely that you WILL spin both tires. So not traction-aiding dioff will ever be as stable as an open diff (except a selectable locker that IS an open diff when not engaged). Yep. I think the ideal diff is a selectable locker. As you know, I have one on the front of Big Blue, but you may have forgotten/not known that I have one on the back of Blue. Just pull the 4wd switch out and it locks the rear up to something like 10 MPH, at which point it turns off. Would be ideal for the top of your hill.

Excellent!

Mid-day report that may be the end-of-day report as I got my 2nd shot of Moderna this morning and it may slow me down this afternoon. Anyway, the Carter/Eddy/Weber/Magneti Marelli carb's throttle flange isn't too hard to drill. The stud I took out is threaded 10-32 so I drilled and tapped it to that. Unfortunately it lines up perfectly with the idle stop screw, so the stud can't come through the flange very far and I couldn't put a nut on the back side. But I put it on with an internal lockwasher and Loctite Orange, so I doubt it'll come off. And, the linkage is now perfect. With the choke kicked off and the linkage resting on the stop there's just a bit of slack in the pedal. And I now get full throttle with the pedal. Haven't driven the truck yet, but I'm sure that's going to make a difference. Thanks, Jim!

Because that's where the biggest market is? The vast majority of people who would buy a locker already bought a 4WD. And while the front axle is usually considerably weaker than the rear, most people seem to agree that a locker in the front is more helpful than a locker in the rear in most situations. And the Eaton TrueTrac is made for the Dana 44 TTB. I would assume the Eaton posi is as well, but the posi is a clutch-type limited slip, not the gear type like the TrueTrac. And having had lockers in three different rear axles and two fronts and a TrueTrac in one rear axle, I'll say that a TrueTrac doesn't come CLOSE to the performance of a locker. Sometimes that's good because it doesn't have the bad manners of a locker. But if you have one tire getting no traction (common in rock crawling or when ice is a factor) a TrueTrac does very little. The TrueTrac works best when both tires get at least semi-decent traction. I dont do rock crawling. mine is a daily driver and there may be ice but the whole design of the truetrac in every document from Eaton themselves state that it transfer power to the wheel with better traction just like a clutch style posi, but if both wheels have the same amount of traction then there will be no transfering of power. So if I was going down the road and hit a patch of ice both tires will have the same amount of traction and wouldnt have a shift in power. But if I move off the road slightly and my right tire hits the dirt on the side of the highway that less traction there will force a shift to the left tire on the pavement. As far as ice itself goes, with AT tires just about all name brand ones ive seen stated they provide traction on ice/snow/mud so like my KO2`s even hitting a patch of ice there should still be some kind of traction on both wheels even if there is one wheel slipping more than the other. I haven't driven on ice or snow with Big Blue's Truetrac, yet, but I have turned corners on asphalt when it had just started raining. As you know, that brings the oil to the surface and makes things slick. Apparently one of the tires started to spin so the Truetrac sent power to the other tire and both spun and I went sideways. I got off and eased into it again, and now I was going straight, and it came loose again. I tried it several times and before I felt the first tire slip the diff had sent power to the other one and I was walking sideways again. I'm not at all saying that a Truetrac is bad. I'm just saying that it will transfer power if one wheel slips, and if neither has much traction you'll be spinning.

Interesting, only thing is its a shame that they cant go with a cut glass lens to create the pattern I dont like the clear look but I have to do something on my truck, I just looked yesterday, my Hella composite glass housings have to be replaced for a 2nd time now in 5 years due to hazing on the inside of the glass. You cant clean it, you cant disassemble the housing to apply some kind of coating on the glass to prevent that.My only option is to buy another set at $80 then defect these out in a month claiming the ones I just bought hazed up on the inside. Then if I do that I have to decide do I want to go back with the ECE approved lights or go with the DOT approved so I can have sign illumination again which you dont have with ECE, but ECE does put a lot of light on the road for me.For me I dont really need to go LED I just am growing tired of replacing my composite housings due to hazing up on the back side of the glass when the whole point of changing to the composite housings was to make it easier to change headlight bulbs over taking the whole front trim doors off every time. But with how many times ive taken it off in 5 years compared to the last 10 years with a sealed beam bulb I think I may just go back sealed beam.I'm surprised that you are seeing fogging in your housings. I ran them for years in my motorcycles and didn't have fogging. But obviously you are, and I'd want to change to something sealed - either LEDs or back to the sealed halogens.But I can't recommend that you "buy another set at $80 then defect these out in a month". That wouldn't be appropriate. And, it just kicks the can down the road. I recommend you decide to go back, to sealed beams, or forward to LEDs.

Interesting. I was wondering about that but couldn’t tell from the pictures. But I don’t know if I’ve seen a 460 with a MAF. Your circle helps! Here's an EEC-V air box lid with the studs for mounting the MAF sensor. From there a single hose goes out to about where you see the connector is in the pic above. There's a Y there that goes from the single large hose from MAF sensor to the two smaller hoses that go to the throttle body.

John - That’s great news! Sure glad to see that. I agree that RA has good pricing, but you’d better make sure you know what you are buying and inspect it immediately upon arrival ‘cause their customer service is next to non-existent.

I’m not sure I could say the Bullnose front end is “pretty”, but I bought the rectangular fog lights based on looks. So I’m not sure I want to put the JD Speaker lights on as I don’t think they really go with the truck. Having said that, Janey said “I’d go with the ones that let you see best the bug-eyed ones if they are best.” I’m still leaning to the Trucklites. They don’t have as good of a pattern as the JW’s, but they are still far better than the stock halogens. And I’m guessing that they are better than the upgraded halogens, at about the same price, although I’ll ask the pro about that.

It definitely works with a TrueTrac. Gear-type limited slips essentially have a multiplier. As I understand it, a TrueTrac for a rear axle application will send 3.5 times as much torque to the tire with traction as the tire without traction will support (2.5x for a TrueTrac intended for a front axle application). When one tire is in the air, or on polished ice, it takes 0 torque to spin it, so the TrueTrac send 3.5 x 0 = 0 torque to the other side. Apply the brakes slightly (parking brake ideally) and now it takes say 50 lb-ft of torque to slip the brake and 0 to spin the tire. But that's still 50 lb-ft. Multiply that by 3.5 and it's sending 175 lb-ft to the tire with traction. Of course it takes about 50 lb-ft to slip that brake too, but you still have 125 lb-ft available to drive that tire forward. (If you're applying the service brakes you also need to overcome the front brakes, and that might take more than you gained, which is why using the parking brake is ideal). When I first got the TrueTrac in my pickup I tried that. I jacked up one back tire and put it in gear (in 2WD). That tire spun freely and the truck just sat there. Then I applied the parking brake. The spinning tire stopped and the truck still just sat there, but the engine rpm had dropped a bit (auto trans). I gave it some gas and the truck drove off the jack. So yes, it definitely works. By the way, this also works to some extent with at least some clutch-type limited slips. The clutch packs are typically between the side gear and the carrier. As you apply more torque to the diff the spider gears will apply more force outward on the side gears. I don't know about the Eaton posi, or any other clutch-type limited slips, but in at least the Powr-Lok differential this force results in more normal force in the clutch packs so they tighten up. I don't know if it's as dramatic as in a TrueTrac, but at least in the Powr-Lok it can be very significant. Incidentally, other than using friction clutches which wear rather than gears which don't wear (much), clutch-type limited slips work completely differently than gear-types. Rather than being a multiplier a clutch-type limited slip is an adder. If it takes 100 ft-lbs (number pulled completely from the air) to slip the clutch packs it will send 100 ft-lbs more torque to the tire with more traction than it will to the tire with less traction, regardless of how much less it has*. So if you have a tire in the air or on ice, a clutch-type limited slip will drive you forward better than a gear-type (if you don't use the parking brake trick). That's a plus for clutch-type limited slips there. But it's a minus in other situations, like when you are turning with both back tires on ice. You need to slip the limited slip clutches or else the tires will be "locked" together, so it's easy to spin out when going around a corner on ice with a clutch-type limited slip, even if you are just coasting. So for me clutch-type limited slips are the worst of both worlds, the traction of an open diff when you need a locker and worse road manners than a locker when you are cornering on ice. * OK, as I said above, at least the Powr-Lok will send more than my arbitrary 100 lb-ft to the tire with more traction if the tire with less traction gets enough to load up the spider/side gear mate. But it still adds the torque required to slip the clutch packs, it's just that the torque is now higher. Bob - Thanks for the detailed explanation.

I just watched this video and I'm impressed with some of the results. But something he said at the end got my attention - do you like the "reflector style" or "projector style". And of the 16 he tested he came down to these: Reflector Style: Grote, Trucklite, and Phillips Projector Style: Morimoto and JW Speaker 8900 Personally I like the reflector style and might consider one of those, especially the Trucklite, given the look and the review. And, speaking of the review, I particularly like the indicator bar at the bottom of the screen that let's you pic the review of the headlight you want to watch. I've gone back and re-watched a number of them and the bar is wonderful for that.

I have considered a posi or Truetrac several times. I’ve read that when in those situations with a Truetrac a little brake will help get more traction to the best side. Do you agree? And I’m not talking rock climbing, but snow, ice, sand, etc. I think perhaps I’m better off with an open diff on my long wheelbase truck. Then I drive my 92 Bronco with the posi and I like it in the snow and ice. I lean towards the Truetrac because of no clutches to replace and they are tough. Dane - I've read the same thing about bringing the brakes on slightly to get the Truetrac to come in. I've not yet had a need to try that, but it is in my bag of tricks. Bob - Does that work?