RE: Limited slip

["George W. Selby, III" <IsuzuG@prodigy.net>]

Limited slip is not locked.  Locked is what is takes if you lift one wheel 
off the ground.  The limited slip sends (usually with American Domestic V8 
- not the same but it illustrates the point I'm about to make)  approx. 3 
times as much torque to one wheel as the other.  The spinning wheel gets 
the most, the stable one gets the least.  So if you have say 100 ft-lbs. of 
torque to move the vehicle, 25 is going to stable side and 75 to spinning 
side.  The car moves.  Now lift that spinning tire off the ground.  Now 0 
torque is spinning the tire.  The other side gets 1/3 of 0, which is 0. 
 The car does not move.   This is what happened to your buddy.  The 
spinning wheel took 0 torque to spin, so that's what the other axle got 
too.  When you spin a tire on the pavement, or off-road, it usually allows 
some torque to the ground, and the limited slip distributes some of this to 
the non spinning side.

Now a quick fix.  Apply the brake (the e-brake if its the rear wheel that's 
spinning) this will put a little drag on the wheel, requiring torque to 
overcome, and voila, torque to the non-spinning wheel and you just might 
move.

This trick has saved me numerous times off-road in two wheel drive trucks.

Or if you have diff locks, just lock them.

George Selby
78 F-150 400M, 4 on floor, 4x4
86 Audi 4000CS Quattro
IsuzuG@prodigy.net