Welding Front Diff on an MG410

[courior]

Hi all.

I did search and read something similar but not the answer i was after

Q: I have manual free wheeling/locking hubs on the front axle and last time i tried a bit off road my fronts were spinning through an open diff on the slippy stuff. I wanted to buy a Spartan Locker or something similar but then i had a thought.... As i have FWH's on the front.. if i weld up the spider gears on the open diff to make it a locked diff, and use the hubs as to "select" open/locked then this should make it much better off road... I never use locked hubs/4x4 on the road (wind up etc..) so this could be good.

Thoughts?

Secondary Q: is Welding the spider gears the correct way to "weld a diff"?

Cheers,

Courior

[Jordi]

My opinion is, no, no, no. Been discussed several times on here and it's just a bad idea.

[timwilks13]

Even off road it would only help you out a small handful of times, for the other 98% of the time off road you just wouldn't be able to steer, some sort of locker is really the only way to go. I asked this exact question just over a year ago and very glad I didn't go ahead.

[courior]

Thanks for the comments lads... So i suppose the downside would be that the steering would be compromised, but i dont see how?.. I understand this when talking about on road.. but off road in mud/gravel/slippy stuff.. Or even climbing a rock when 1 wheel is in the air i would of thought that it would be very helpful and more than 2% of the time (loads of youtube off road vids show a car climbing then when the front open diff spins a wheel they get stuck).. I did a small little off road rock/gravel obstacle and having the front locked somehow would of really helped....

How would a welded diff effect steering off road? i would of thought a lock right/spartan locker would still keep things locked as they are stronger than the tyres grip on sloppy mud/gravel?

Remember i would not EVER drive on a road with the hubs locked. so this is purely for use off road.

Not wanting to start a debate/argument... Just want to understand fully why this is not a good idea.

Cheers.

[twiss]

If you weld the diff steering off road in 4wd will become almost impossible

[courior]

Ok thats short and too the point..... So.......... Whats the cheapest locker?? I think Spartan lockers are good, but i cant see them for a 410, only a 413.

[twiss]

To be honest I'm not sure if you can get 410 front lockers...
You would probably get better off road performance from a powertrax locker (similar to spartan) in the back, rather than a locker in the front.
The front wheels have the weight of the engine over them anyway so get quite a bit of grip, whereas there isn't that much weight over the back wheels so they spin up really easily.
You can get the rears from Jimnybits but they are almost £350...

The other thing is, it might be worth seeing if you can get a chinasoong (chinese) air locker for the 410.
The powertrax is massively expensive and I think the chinese air lockers (comes with a compressor) aren't a huge amount more than that!

Personally I would get some A/T or M/T tyres first as you will get a hell of a lot more grip just from that

[courior]

Yeah. Currently have chunky road tyres on it. Very good at light rock crawling so far. But its bone dry here. Once it gets wet I think I'm going to struggle. Better tyres it is then !

[twiss]

Im not bringing any tyres over with me in september haha
We will have to find out exactly what your road-tyred gypsy can do

[courior]

It will be much better with a decent carb on it! And some bushes in the suspension! Its metal on metal now.