Will the "normal drive wheel" will see more wear than the other or do both
wheels wear evenly? No, I don't want to find out by not rotating my
tires... ;-)
Forgive a possibly stupid question, but how does the diff transfer power
from one wheel to the other?
Phil Caskey, Assuming(there's that word again) that your not breaking the
tires loose, wear is a function of rolling resistance, speed, and load.
Applying power to one wheel actually puts a greater load on it than on the
other wheel on the same axle. How much greater depends mostly on how you
drive. If you are an easy driver you may never notice any difference in wear,
but if you'r a hard driver with lot's of acceleration I'm sure you will see a
diference. Your other question certainly is not stupid. It's been over 30
years since I have worked on a "Posi-Traction" GMs name for a LSD. Some of the
details are a little fuzzy and I will have to do a little research to give you
an accurate answer but I will tell you what I remember now and the rest later.
The Bellville clutch I refered to is a type of slipping clutch very common to
engineers (no I'm not an engineer), been around a long time, and has many good
properties such as simple operation, easy to make, inexpensive, easy to
actuate, and can transfer large loads for it's size. It is difficult to
describe but here goes. It is a series of disks, alternately splined to an
outside hub and an inside axle. That is the 1st disk is locked to the hub but
not to the axle, the2nd disk is locked to the axle but not the hub, the 3rd
disk is locked to the hub but not the axle, etc., etc. Now if there is no
pressure on the disks the hub and axle are free to turn independent of each
other, but if if we hold all the disks together with pressure then the hub and
the axle move together. In a Posi-Traction the discs are held together by an
adjustable spring. as I remember the differential is attached to the hub and
the axle is attached to the drive wheel, it's at about this point that I start
to lose it but like I said before I'll look it up and give you the straight
dope. If you want to see a Bellville clutch in action, find an old single
speed bicycle. The "Coaster Brake" on these bicycles is a Bellville clutch
actuated by turning the pedal crank backwards. Enough for now-more later.
Jack Collins.........Older than old.
87 DAKOTA LE with 225,000+ miles 98 DAKOTA SLT CC with 2,000+
miles
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