I found another road surface on which ABS is of little value this weekend.
As several auto magazine writers have noted, snow atop glare ice is one
surface where you're actually better off without ABS - the snow will pile
up in front of a locked-up tire, and help stop you. I've found this to be
true back in Montana, but the advantages in other winter driving conditions
outweigh that disadvantage.
I've also found four-channel ABS quite useful offroad, and on gravel and
sandy "roads". With the rains this weekend in California, I found one
more surface where ABS doesn't help -- I don't know if it hurts, but --
and that's sticky, gumball mud. The kind of clay'ey, clumpy mud that
clings to tires and makes them get bigger and bigger, then flies off and
sticks to whatever it hits.
As it happens, I was descending a steep, narrow fire road, with a 1000-ft
drop, no guardrails (ha!), sections where half the road was washed out
(generally on the inside of tight turns) and another mile of downgrade.
I put the truck in the ditch only once (I was lucky there was a ditch at
all at that point -- the alternative would not be pretty) and I was able
to back out pretty easily in 4WD-Low. It was a challenge though. The rear
tires would collect mud, getting bigger in diameter, and wanting to go
faster than the front, so I'd have to stab the throttle to keep the front
in front, and to shake off the mud in back -- and gaining speed! The ABS
kept the rear from locking when I'd hit the brakes, so the mud would
accumulate again, the rear would come around again, and...
Oh, and did I mention this is with enough elevation to be IN a rain cloud?
Dakotas...RULE!
There is an interesting afternote to this. I found out I'd sucked the
bushing and pin out of one of my fancy Bilstein shocks in back. Didn't
know you could do that, but the folks at Off Road Warehouse have had a
few Chevies so abused... Bilstein has changed the part number; anyone
wanting to fit Bilsteins on a 4x4 Dakota, I'm using the shock they spec
for a Chevy Suburban: F4-B46-2042-H0. I didn't check on part number changes,
but the front shocks are usually fit on Ford F250's. With the greater
unsprung weight of the 31x10.5-15 tires, this setup works very well.
Jim
Dakota - the Right Caliber of Dodge Magnum Force.
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