I am currently in the middle of a spring over on my 72 FJ40 and have my front and rear axles apart. I have a EZ-locker or a Lock-Rite in the rear and open in the front. I am thinking about welding my rear and putting the locker up front. My cruiser is a daily driver when it is running. My first question is, how different is a welder rear and a full detriot locker. I have driven vehicles with detroits so I am interested in the difference between the to. Also can I just swap the front and rear thirds. I know the rear has c-clips and the front does not. Can they just be swapped. any help would be great.
welding rear diff (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter megolfer
- Start date
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Really it depends on the type of daily driving you do... local to work/school... or commuting miles everyday. Really a welded axle has very adverse handling effects, but they can be overcome with cautious driving.
Welded is different but I don't know if I would call it worse. Much like the difference between open diff and auto-locker.
Answer to part two of your inquiry is: They are the same, front and rear.
I ran a detroit in the rear for years and on the icy roads in Id and Co it wasn't at all sketchy, in fact I prefer it to an open dif in the rear. This winter I am running a detroit in the front and welded the rear and I love it so far, even on dry roads the welded rear doesn't have the lateral jerk associated with the detroit. However, the front end does have an initial pull to the left(right ?) when I take off from a stop. I would do it again. Just my $.02.
