Diff lock?

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landy-lee

landy-lee

Well-Known Member
Posts
706
Location
derby
Good morning.

Am i right in thinking that as soon as i take my landy on a loose surface i need to engage diff lock?

For example driving 5-10mph on a lose farm track made of mud and lose stone?

Or is it a case where i think i will get lost of wheel spin like in a muddy field?

Cheers Landy-Lee
 
I expect you will get differing opinions, I personally only engage it when it looks really bad. The vehicle is capable and I like to see how far I can get without it locked. It's one of those things that people are fairly opinionated on and others just see what happens!
 
Yeahninreguslrly engage low/high and dofflock but just to keep the mechanisms free.

Have only needed it a few times laning tbh.

You don’t need to engage it on every loose surface, and if you do run out of forward momentum (from one wheel spinning) then either engage it then or reverse out amthen engage before going forward again.

Having said that I always engage it before driving onto wet muddy grass as once you loose traction on that your often done for.
 
If out in loose stuff I don't use mine. If I get stuck I then engage diff & reverse. Shame of a tow :eek:

You will get use to the traction. Don't give it full beans
 
Your car doesn’t necessarily have 4 wheels driving. If you stuck one wheel on a small rolling platform it would spin and the other 3 wheels may not budge. Selecting diff lock ensures that 50% of the power will go to the front and 50% to the rear and if one wheel spun then the car would still move. The exception to this is if the wheels are not on the same surface and not level.

So, if you are going off road, to a loose surface, select diff-lock to give yourself maximum traction capability. Many argue to ‘only use it when you are stuck’ - it’s potentially too late by then as you have lost momentum.

I was an off road driving instructor for many years. The industry standard award for professional off-road driving is through LANTRA. This pretty much advises low ratio and difflock when going off road. There can be exceptions of course.
 
It’s something that experience should teach you. I do quite a bit of “off road” driving and towing. I don’t tend to engage difflock that often, but low range sees almost as much use as high range.

My advice would be, if you think one wheel “may” spin, then engage it and drive over/through the obstacle. If you drive the same routes and keep engaging it in the same places, give it a go without one time. You will soon learn when it really needs it.
 
Another thing to bear in mind is that the centre diff is only designed to cope with a relatively small amount of slip front to rear. If the diff lock is not engaged and one wheel spins unconstrained by either the driver or the TC, there is a significant risk that the diff will fail quite quickly. The problem is worse for Discos as some spin is required for the TC to work, but don't gun hard it if one does or let a wheel spin for long. Personally if I think a sustained loss of traction is likely and the surface is loose enough not to risk winding up the transmission, I engage the diff lock.
This video is worth watching as Dave Ashcroft knows a thing or two about diffs.
 
yes you should engage diff lock before any chance of wheel slip, trying to engage it whilst you have wheel spin is a diff failure cause with sudden shock loading, the center diff is as strong as the std rover axle diffs, spinning a wheel whilst best avoided isnt going to blow a center diff in seconds
 
jamesmartin said:
yes you should engage diff lock before any chance of wheel slip, trying to engage it whilst you have wheel spin is a diff failure cause with sudden shock loading, the center diff is as strong as the std rover axle diffs, spinning a wheel whilst best avoided isnt going to blow a center diff in seconds
Click to expand...

Yep this 100%!

My brother used to always get as far as he could without diff lock, then engage it when he had wheel spin/on the verge of getting stuck, and I always thought it was a silly idea with the potential of diff center damage, especially so if engaged whilst scrabbling etc, hes changed to always put it in from the off.

As long as there is slight amount of give, ie gravel, mud veneer, grass, leaves etc etc you can't damage it by engaging diff lock. I only take mine out of lock when greenlaning etc if the base suddenly becomes hard compact, or solid stone.

The centre diff is quite a small unit anorl
 
I've always used difflock as soon as I go offroad. I hardly ever get stuck and I've never trashed anything till I did a rear half shaft a few weeks back.
But that was more down to the landy bouncing that anything else
 
neilly said:
Some have them , some do not.

The provision is there on the box but its not linked up to the lever.
The inference from those videos was that the TB was bolloxed if you spin up too much without having the diff locked but that's excactly how the TC on the D2 works.
Who should you believe then?
I'm thinking of enabling the diff lock on the TB but I'm not paying the prices quoted for the kit to do, i'll be working it out for myself.
Click to expand...
 
@Bantam1

Some D2's came with Difflock.

Some came with nothing.

some came with the internals in the TB , but the lever arms were not fitted and the plate below the cabin lever is a slot , so needs to be cut when the attachments are added and connectd, ( lots of info on the web about how to add a Difflock either lever or complete ) if needed.

Cheers
 
Bantam1 said:
Sorry that looked like neilly's quote. The last four lines were mine.
Click to expand...

Does your TB already have the internals?

Would you consider the ATB from Ashcrofts if you didn't already have the internals or would you go down the S/H earlier/later TB to gain the centre difflock?

Sorry, know it has nothing to do with anything much but I'm just curious ;)
 
dieseldog69 said:
Does your TB already have the internals?

Would you consider the ATB from Ashcrofts if you didn't already have the internals or would you go down the S/H earlier/later TB to gain the centre difflock?

Sorry, know it has nothing to do with anything much but I'm just curious ;)
Click to expand...
Well I haven't looked that closely into it but I appear to have the internals so I am assuming I can get some s/h shift bits.
 
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