Aftermarket Lock in/out Front hubs

[Army Sgt]

Less wear and tear ???????
Better gas mileage ???????

:xelicon:

[rrdstarr]

Yes
Yes

Get Warn hubs from EOE!

[xoc]

No.
No.

When the front is unlocked, nothing is turning, regardless of what type of hub is used.

[Army Sgt]

Thankyou !!
Thankyou !!












If you "GO ARMY " go into Aviation.

[cmxterra]

Pizza!
Pizza!

[Chris_McCracken]

I think the main reason people switch to manual hubs (I could be wrong, though) is that that they are significantly stronger than the Nissan auto hubs. At GOX, I saw several people blow the auto hubs (the only one I remember by name was Ivan). As far as I know, noone has blown an aftermarket hub (except Matt Peckham and that Milemarker hub, but there were "installation issues"). I personally don't like the idea of having to stop and get out to engage 4WD. I'd rather carry a spare auto hub (its not like they're difficult to replace).

[rhombus]

The other reason is explained on the http://www.maxc.org site.

Here is the snip from the site:
Credits going to Mr. T & Synchro

<snip>
Auto hubs VS. Manual hubs

Why ditch the stock auto hubs in favor of manual hubs?
Automatic hubs actually disengage briefly when the vehicle is in 4WD and you switch directions, i.e. frontwards to backwards, backwards to frontwards. The front wheels have to roll in the new direction a short distance before the hubs will re-engage (about one foot). This means that you're in 2WD until the hubs hook up again. When you get stuck while in 4WD, if you try to rock the vehicle frontwards and backwards to free it, you end up in 2WD for much of the experience, which means you might remain stuck because you don't really have 4WD to pull you out. When the hubs do re-engage, and if the back wheels are being turned by the engine faster than the fronts happen to be rolling, you get a big CLUNK as the hubs kick in again. That's hard on the hubs and front driveline. Manual hubs do not do this, they are either LOCKED or UNLOCKED.
<end snip>

[VaderX]

You also might consider additional problems broken hubs can cause. Mine were blown and one would not disengage. What ended up happening is that both wheel bearings in the front were ruined as well as one of the knuckles. I am not positive that the broken hubs caused this but since they were the only things malfunctioning I can't imagine it was anything else. I switched to manuals and while it is a pain to get out it is definitely a comfort to know they won't blow as easily.

[Kerensky97]

I've had that problem on snow, I backed up and tried to get going again but couldn't get any forward movement to re-engage the hubs.

But its not that hard to just back up more than usual so you can get an extra foot to re-engage the hubs when you move forward again.

In the automatic the tranny doesn't shift quickly enough to for you to rock very well anyway.
For now its nice to be able to not have to get out and switch the hubs.