An idea i tried out today!

So on the way to school, i saw a patch of ice on the road. I decided to try out one of my ideas at a low speed. (Don't worry, it was on a back road, and no one was on the road at the time) Excuse my crude drawings in GIMP .

I have a 08 PreRunner, so no Diff Lock, and no ALSD.

1.) I noticed that if i drive like i normally would, my rear passenger side tire would just spin. I was still able to move, but very slowly. Like in the picture below, the blue bits is the ice.


2.) So, the idea i had thought of a long time ago, i finally could test. I turned around and went back over the ice. This time though, i had the parking brake on, just enough to grab so the truck can very slowly move forward with out pushing the gas. As i started to put my foot down on the pedal, when i hit the small patch of ice, the wheel still spun a little bit, but i was able to get through alot smoother, with much less spin.


From this i concluded that having the parking brake on just slightly, could simulate a locked diff, or limited slip. Imo, the only downside to doing this is that it could damage the rear drums, but i am not sure of that.

I'd like yalls input!

 

hmmm....i dunno. depends on how long you drove with the break on...

 

It was a small patch, so less then 30 seconds.

 

I tried that without much luck one time when I had the rear wheel almost off the ground, but that trying to climb.

I could see how that might work on ice though. Its basically simulating auto-lsd. You are helping transfer some power to the wheel that has traction.

I wouldn't think it would really hurt anything seeing as thats exactly what the 09+ with auto-lsd do, they hit the brakes on each wheel individually.

I do see it causing wear on the pads quicker though, which is what I don't like about auto-lsd.

 

i think that is along the lines of atrac, except atrac is a little more complex than the parking brake haha

 

known as a "poor man's locker"

 

Add another parking brake so you have one for each
wheel!!

 

Yep, old school trick. You re-discovered it!

 

Ya the "Poor Mans Locker" on the Tacoma usually works best using 2 clicks on the e brake pedal.

 

ive used this method before on trails, works well enough

 

I never had much luck using the poor mans locker... guess I have a heavy food! Good one to remember, though!

btw - tell your kids, nice job on the pictures!!

 

myname150, my guess is that in Houston you don't run across many ice patches very often.

 

This. I've been doing this for years- Not to try and get across ice...but offroad pretty regularly.

 

yeah, it's an old trick, but can work well depending on conditions.

here's a video someone took of my at out off road meet two weeks ago. I have the factory limmited slip. specifically from 50 seconds to 1 minute in the video, you'll see my rear tire spinn and stop. that was me working the break. each time, the truck moves a little bit until it actually makes it....so it does indeed get the job done...sometimes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2EhLK0w7_0

 

Learned something new today...thanks op for posting this up...might be a old trick but still new to some people

 

colin, you need some tires man!!!!

+1 though, I sometimes use it when I have a wheel off the ground to help the posi out.

 

Was that Ocala?

 

haha nooo, i've only been driving since i was 15 (hitting 18 next month woo! ) not once have i ever encountered ice on the road.

Yeah, yall i tried this a while back with no success when i got stuck, but then again i probably was doing it wrong haha. It seems like this trick works sometimes...

 

No problem! lol, it was semi-new to me. Tried it a while back, didnt work. Tried it today, pretty aweeesome!

 

they actually dig nicely 265/70/17 terra grapplers with 10/32 tread depth currently. i was the only one to make it up that section. i didn't have any traction problems the entire trip.

however, my next tires will more than likely be a 285.