I guess I'm doing it all wrong then.

I have a 4th gen v8 with an elocker rear. The Elocker works great because the atrac only plays with the front tires and helps tremendously in snow and on trails with 4 foot rocks and snow. I know that ARB has this ad campaign about "being able to lock your diff at any speed". But then you need air, air lines, a compressor that runs ALL the time and you better hope that you don't have to cross a river with your ARB compressor running or it will suck in a bunch of water and you are done.

BTW-- I am not really an ARB fan. I have their skidplates on my 4th gen...they are the weakest, cheapest junk I have ever seen. I don't trust that their "air locker" is of any higher quality, especially when compared to a factory Aisin Elocker.

No offense, but I can't stand it when this video is used to talk about the effectiveness (or lack of) of LSD's. This is improperly titled as the 'LSD' portion of this is basically the ATRAC at work and the guy even clearly says that when the truck makes it up the embankment. A true LSD would have done better. An LSD with ATRAC would have done nearly as good as the white truck.

Who said you are doing anything wrong?

I'd like to chime in with a view from left field. Don't let me current location throw you, I spent 10 years driving in upstate NY.

For driving on pavement in bad weather (snow and ice), tire choice is going to make more difference than anything. A beater RWD truck with proper snow tires will get around just fine if driven with care. People drove for years and years without AWD, traction control and all of our other modern aids. Adding AWD or an LSD is just going to improve how well the tires grip.

Now, wheeling or rock crawling is a completely different animal than driving on smooth ground. I don't have much experience with it at all, but if you lift a wheel with a Torsen (helical gear) type unit, you've got an open differential, so unless you've got something like ATRACs, using a Torsen type where you might lift a wheel without some kind of brake force distribution system seems like a waste of money.

You're right. Not offended here. They are refering to atrac as being a limited slip. But it has toyota vehicles so it fits. I don't like non 100% truthful videos either. A true LSD could have done better, maybe, but you think as good as the locker. And it's not really talking to the effectiveness or lack of an LSD, but more to the effectiveness of an ARB Locker...marketing material probably 100%. You have a front ARB, do you ever use it?

I don't like to blast through obstacles or mud. I acknowledge the short commings of Atrac. But I got a winch for the 4th gen before I got lockers. I want to crawl through either locked up or behind a winch rope. The best I can get my 4th gen to be little bit like my crawler is with dual lockers. Northeast trails are rocky, muddy, tight and mostly wild ungroomed trails.

An ARB or elocker is at least selectable for a daily driver. You end up having to kick up less dirt and ruin the trails less. It's a big concern for us in the north east with all the trail closures.

So in reality, if I had one upgrade to take, I'd take a winch mount and winch before getting lockers. Even with both my 4runners, dual locked, in mud you only get so far before you get stuck. In fact some sections of trails I do often, I know 100% that I'm getting stuck. So rather than try to blast through, I drop in, nice and easy go as far as I can, and then roll out the winch. Get to the other side, turn my truck around and guide the rest of the guys to do the same, once they are stuck if they don't have their own winch I hook them up and pull them across. No breakage, everyone gets back home, and lunch isn't spent in a mud pit with a side of diff oil and cv grease.

If we can agree to disagree. It doesn't really matter what you have. 4Runner, Landrover, Jeep, Ford, stock or modified. They all make up part of my offroad buddies from hard core modified to bone stock, eventhough officially we're a toyota club. Getting stuck is part of the game, I've been there, almost every trail. Lockers or LSD isn't what gets you out, winches, straps and good buddies get you out. Another aspect is not to go out alone.

This video below I've seen before and just stumbled on it again as a youtube suggestion...

https://youtu.be/-lydlwgiW6Y

I've lived something similar as the below with a buddies' F350, 35" MT tires and LSD. During some long distance expedition style driving, so not rock crawling, on wet gravel roads up north, he slipped off the gravel road and couldn't get back up and needed to be pulled out.

https://youtu.be/DjCDuXIQQYc

Yes I agree the ARB skid plates are total junk. But you need to contextulaize what they are probably meant for. They might be ok for expedition style driving, better or just as good as the stock skids But not rock crawling.

ARB for me is bumpers and Air Locker. I do think they are a quality product. How much of the price is paying for marketing and that the competiton for selectiable lockers is so little?? Mine have been problem free. And some club memeber have had them in old landcruisers for at least the 10 years I've known them....and their cruisers are like from the 1986 or so.

This weekend we removed a failed elocker on an FJ Cruiser and replaced with a known good used one. I'm having trouble with the add picture function at the moment, I'll try again later. It is aluminium. And it corrodes something fierce, so bad that it became brittle enough to break appart in your hand. The internals were still dry and like new looking, grease was still yellowish, but the rod wouldn't move in and out anymore. It's not serviceable. It's like a press fitting sealing it so you can't unscrew it for example to clean it out. So much for Aisin quality. And a large number of elockers in our FJC group end up having elockers that seize up even with breather mods. They can be saved if they haven't cracked or don't break appart when working on them. Besides mud, water and road salt, the aluminium to steel contact causes a corrosive reaction. None to my knowledge is made for a front IFS, and a 4runner without an elocker will need a new housing to receive it or have it modified with an elocker notch.

well people, after several more obstacle tests I have determined that Atrac just plain sucks! I am saddened to say that a 2010 Explorer, and all honda/acura awd systems I have tested performed better when 2 or more wheels start to loose traction. I now have zero confidence in atrac and am too worried to try a true track so the aussie it is! Just ordered it though amazon and everything cost me about 1000.. I have not had the time to take someone with me who could record some the testing I did but I will just leave you with this picture and let you know that it took 4 attempts to make it up this small hill and it finally made it after I began the hill at no less than 10mph and just stayed on the gas and Atrac barely was able to keep it moving.. Just to compare, neither my 2005 LR3 or 2010 LR4 ever broke a sweat getting up this thing.. I was alerted to the weakness of Atrac many months ago when I was guiding by friend who just bought a brand new taco TRD offroad (2014 model year) and damn near had to activate his locker to make it up this tiny hill.. I just though it was just him at first.. sadly it wasnt

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Yeah, cross-axled and stopped is the worst case scenario for the way the 4th gen atrac works, but I gotta ask just to make sure -- are you giving it some gas and just holding steady while letting the unweighted tires do their obligatory 1 or 2 spin rotations before the atrac grabs and the truck vibrates and sounds like a giant coffee percolator before crawling forward?

If so, pardon the interruption but if not, give it a try.

On a separate note, some aggressive tires at about 18psi would probably do as much or more for you there as a rear locker. Could be I'm talking out my a$$ as I've never had a rear locker, but I'm also unfamiliar with the severity of problem you seem to be describing.

I've not had a chance yet to test ATRAC in that situation, since I just got my '06 in December. I do know, however, that cross-axled like that was a "stop dead in your tracks" situation for my '94 until I put the Aussie locker in the front. With the locker you don't even notice the obstacle - you just keep going with absolutely no drama.

My guess is OP won't be truly satisfied with anything but a locker - might as well pony up and do it.

as i got into bigger and bigger rocks my atrac just couldnt help enough (a lot of stop and start on obsticles and what not), so i bought a used elocker from a 96 runner on ebay for 330 bucks. had it rebuilt and installed it with a 12vguy harness. the difference is night and day vs just Atrac. honestly modifying the housing wasnt too bad. just 2days with a dremel and a good drill was all it took. and i love it. however the actuator does take some maintenance to keep it 100%, but being a EE student helps with understanding what the issues could be and how to address them, so its not a big deal to me either.

Since you're an EE you can maybe appreciate this theory. One of the issues I've read about when setting up control of the Toytota elocker with aftermarket wiring and relays, etc., is that the motor tends to jam at the ends its travel. The common solution to that is to put resistors in series to slow down the motor so it doesn't run into the stops as hard.

I've often suspected that's not the proper solution. I would suggest instead using a SPDT relay for each direction, and when the limit switch trips, wire the relay to open the connection from +12V to the high side of the coil, and at the same time short the high side of the coil to ground, which will put short across the coil. Putting a dead short across a permanent magnet DC motor will stop the motor immediately, so it won't run into the stops and jam. That way you can dispense with the resistor and run full power during actuation.

Not sure if you've had those issues, but something to consider. It might require a couple of DPDT relays to wire it to do that and still operate in both directions, but I'm sure it can be done. I strongly suspect that's what the Toyota controller does, or something similar.

ive never had it jam, ive had it bind but thats just from cross load on the fork when trying to lock and unlock it. you could very well run a relay setup, its a very popular way to do it, SLEE offroad actually sells a built relay box for it that you just wire in. the way the limiters are set up works pretty well as long as the switch is a good DPDT and the motor in the actuator is clocked properly.

Definitely.. I have tried everything.. Moving forward at constant speed, throttle, and rpm is your best chance to get up anywhere. thats in 4low with center locked off course.. the problem is when you are going up hill, it starts to slow down and you have to compensate with much more throttle.. the system its just too slow, too violent, too clumsy, and too easily defeated. its just not a good system.. Realtive to other systems I have played with anyway... otherwise, I love the 4Runner! anyway, my aussie locker is on the way!! very excited! then this thing will be complete!!

cross-axled and stopped is exactly when you need a system like this to work.. otherwise what is point of the system anyway?

as far as the tires are concerned, airing down the tires will not keep them of from getting off the ground, not with me anyway.. and thats when these things get int trouble

You don't look like you're aired down, and those tires don't exactly look like ATs. To be honest, I've done harder than that and made it up no problem in 4lo and 1st gear w/ center diff locked. I'm talking loose rocky terrain with boulders in the middle of it going straight up the side of a hill.

Yeah, he's convinced he needs a locker. I think better tires and aired down would be a much much better choice as well.

OP: The picture you posted above doesn't seem to different than the terrain seen in the following two videos. In both cases, the axles got crossed, ATRAC did its thing and off I went.

Just curious...





Here's one from Moab: