Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 19:18:56 -0800
Reply-To: Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Syncros. Positractions, Peloquins, and One Wheel Drives
In-Reply-To: <CAHtJhYP-JPYvyxxHYjmxuLkE6xVVqHQTei+8oVPEVwhRRHX4yw@mail.gmail.com>
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"A Syncro would handle it just fine as long as you remember that just
because they can get going does not mean they will stop any better than
other vehicles."
As my son, a professional tow truck driver who has pulled plenty of cars
out of snow and ice puts it, "With four wheel drive you can get rolling
more easily than a two-wheel-drive car, but all cars steer with two
wheels and have four-wheel braking."
--
Jack "Rocket j Squirrel" Elliott
1984 Westfalia, auto trans,
Bend, Ore.
On 01/29/2014 05:36 PM, Mark Tuovinen wrote:
> A Syncro would handle it just fine as long as you remember that just
> because they can get going does not mean they will stop any better than
> other vehicles. I used to have a Sunroof Syncro that was my year round
> daily driver until the wife gave me a 2010 Element EX AWD for Christmas
> 2009. I did have Nokian studded tires on it but never had to engage the
> rear diff lock. Could I have gotten it stuck, sure, all you have to do is
> try or screw up while not trying. The nut behind the steering wheel has as
> much or more to do with it than whether or not is is a Syncro, has studded
> tires, diff lock, etc, but John you know this already having yourself lived
> for decades in this frozen.....err thawing out paradise we call Alaska.
>
> Mark in AK still melting away in Margaritaville
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 11:57 AM, JRodgers <jrodgers113@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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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