[Click here for pix of my former Caddy]
I really like the Quaife "Automatic Torque Biasing" (a.k.a. limited slip) differential. It made such a huge difference. With a high torque diesel engine, coupled with a 3.89 final drive ratio, spinning the inside tire in a turn was inevitable. In the rain, invariable one tire would break loose and I'd sit there spinning. Now, you punch it and GO. You can hear the inside tire trying to break loose a little, but the outside tire is pulling. You do have to hold on to the steering wheel, it wants to straighten out. But unlike before, the harder you turn the wheel the more the vehicle wants to turn. Need to pull out onto a rain slick roadway, just hit the throttle. Both front tires will spin a little but then they grab and you are going.
You do feel a little bit of steering input from the throttle, accelerate and it goes into slight understeer, back off the throttle and its very slight oversteer. Not bad at all, I think the Quaife is a lot mellower than the TrueTrac limited slip I ran in my Toyota 4x4 for a few years and nowhere near as bad as an automatic lock differential in the same rig. I think this is mainly due to a lower torque biasing ratio on the Quaife. I was on a snow covered hill with rocks and had both tires on icy snow, but one tire was in a bit of a hole. I was unable to load up the brakes to get the other tire pulling. Had to get both tires fairly equally weighted to get going. Once on a more even surface, I had no traction problems with more snow and ice. I was pretty happy with the way it worked in snow.
I ended up blowing out the 3.89 gears and opted to have a local shop (Ron's Transaxle in San Pablo, CA) rebuild the transaxle. I picked up a used 3.67 gear set and sent it off to NW Cryogenics to be cryo-treated prior to installation. Ron's did a great job with the transaxle, replacing a few other internal worn parts and upgrading it to the later style end cab and double arm clutch setup.[Return to the top of this page]
One of the things I like about my pickup is that it makes a great rig for extended road trips:
I've taken it on a few interesting trips over the years (mostly in my old '81)
After a full-size Chevy pickup rammed me while I was stopped at a red light, pushing me into the car in front of me. The jerk driving the pickup was obviously not paying attention. My pickup is still driveable, but I traded it in on a recently rebuilt '82 model w/ 1.9L n/a engine:
Visitor # 203813 since 08.AUG.2001
[Last updated: 26.April.2024 ]