Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 13:22:12 -0800
Reply-To: Stuart MacMillan <stuartmacm@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Stuart MacMillan <stuartmacm@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Syncros. Positractions, Peloquins, and One Wheel Drives
In-Reply-To: <52E96B2F.1060208@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Poor man's Peloquin: Pull up on the parking brake while keeping the lock
button pushed down to stop that wheel spin. It's remarkably effective. I've
successfully used this trick many times over the years to get out of a jam.
It's for getting up hills at low speed from a stop, nothing else. I've even
used it in reverse to back out of a downhill parking space. Studded tires
work best, but it can work with anything if you have at least some traction.
On ice nothing works except studded tires or chains no matter how many
wheels are driving.
You folks in the sunbelt have neither, so wait for the thaw (tomorrow!)
Stuart
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
JRodgers
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2014 12:57 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Syncros. Positractions, Peloquins, and One Wheel Drives
Wishing I had one of the first three, but unfortunately, mine are the latter
- the one-wheel drive Vanagons.
Alabama really got clobbered yesterday with a snowstorm. By nothern
standards it wasn't much - two inches - maybe three in places. But strom was
expected to hit the southern part of the state - but it didn't do much there
- but did do much further north - and it caught the weather-men in the back
room with their britches down. As the day progressed - the highways and
by-ways became clogged with cars colliding, sliding off the road, getting
stuck on bridges, huge multicar pile-ups, tractor trailer rigs jack-knifed
across the roads, a total mess. Schools closed, but the buses couldn't take
kids home - they spent the night in the school buildings - teachers with
them of course - they couldn't go home either. Parents couldn't get their
little kids out of day care - or nursery - nobody could go anywhere. People
out on the highways were walking to shelter any where they could find it.
Temps were 15 degrees. Many wound up spending the night in their vehicles.
The roads are still pretty much closed as I write this and people are still
being told by the DOT to stay home and off the r5oads. A thaw is expected to
begin Wednesday night and be well under way by Thursday - with temps moving
from mid to upper twenties into the 40's. IN the meantime - it's a mix of
water, ice and snow out there, and the City of Birmingham where I am is shut
down. Fortunately I'm well provisioned and have heat - so long as power
stays on.
This brings me to the point about the vans. I wonder how good a Syncro, or a
positrac or a peloquin would have performed in this. In Alaska we always
joked about people from the states bringing their four wheel drives up to
Alaska just to run off the road and get them stuck in the snowbank. I laugh
about this because in all my years in Alaska, the first 15 I never had a 4WD
vehicle - and in the last 15 years I only had one for about 4 years. Most of
that 30 years I drove a VW bus - s '68 loaf and later an '85 GL Vanagon.
Never needed the 4WD. Would have been nice - but not necessary.. Here -
yesterday - many, many 4 WD vehicle drivers found themselves off the road or
in the ditch or in a collision, or sliding across the highway or backward
down a hill in spite of their 4-wheelie-ness.
All that being said - I don't ever expect to own a syncro - but at rebuild
for my tranny, I fully expect to have the positraction rear end installed.
Has anyone actually experienced driving the peloquin or the prositrac under
adverse conditions? Can you comment please.
Thanks,
John in Snowy Icy Birmingham. AL
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