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Married White Male seeking long term relationship with locking hubs...seeking information at this time...Have tried search function to no avail....What hubs will work on the VX? What is install time? Are they covered by the center caps? Thanks in advance. Don
This has been done and IIRC the parts are the same as for the Trooper. You will need to do the TOD mod so you can switch it off for when the hubs are free. Tad from PlanetIsuzoo has done this I believe, so you may want to email or PM him. His ID here is "Nazrat" or you can probably divine additional info at www.planetisuzoo.com
Thanks, Joe. Why do you suppose it will be important to disconnect the TOD also? My intent is not any major distance driving but to just be able to use my spare (which is smaller diameter and would only be put on the front).
If you disconnect the hubs and leave the front driveline engaged the front axle and shafts will just be spinning with no load, not generally a good thing.
As for using your spare, there's no real issue with the driveline that would cause problems with limited use as is. You'd have greater steering and handling problems than would be caused by a little torque-bind from the slightly different tire diameter.
Some in the past have looked into disconnecting the front driveline in the hopes of increasing fuel economy, so I figured that might have been your motivation.
I swapped on some Aisin manual hubs. I have a 1999 with 16" wheels. The center caps from 95 Trooper wheels with hub cutouts fit fine and look stock. The hubs come stock on 88-91 4cyl auto Troopers and on 89-94 Amigos.
I've hit the TOD button while unlocked by mistake once. It didn't do any more harm than running in a normal 4x4 with the hubs unlocked and the front axle in 4-high.
I haven't done any kind of conclusive mileage test. Best I can say is 1mpg seems right, but there could have been other factors. If I had time to spend an afternoon messing around on the same stretch of road I'd have a better answer for you.
In any kind of wet weather I have them locked though. It's easy to get a bit too much throttle and end up spinning the rear tires, which isn't much fun on the corners.
-Tad
The VX comes stock with "LOCKED ALL THE TIME HUBS"...not Auto hubs, but "LOCKED ALL THE TIME". So, disengaging the hub doesn't make it spin all the time... it just allows the TOD not to send power to the front axle and unlock the hub so it doesn't spin all the time.
You want the TOD on/off switch so your TOD clutch solenoid doesn't burn out if you are in a situation that requires the sensors to attempt to engage the TOD repetitiously. Trust me a T-case is not fun to replace, time consuming and very tedious.