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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
Comments: To: JRodgers <jrodgers113@GMAIL.COM>
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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