Locking Hubs, who's gonna be the first???

[SoK66]

Had them "freeze up" where I could not kick them before. With a FAD there's not much moving at all. Only with no fad does everything spin. Wear is minimal as AMC produced thousands of vehicles with no FAD and I've seen them with over 200,000 miles and still fine
For a heavy or full size truck, they make sense.

With manual hubs you have the option of 2WD low by simply not locking them in.

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[GeekJT]

I like the idea, but I already have the FAD.

I know the question of locking hubs has come up before so I thought I'd post.
Guess others beat me to it.

I need a front axle housing that would use all my Diesel Rubicon goodies with no FAD housing and locking hubs. I'm not married to my current wheels, I'd change to a 5x5.5 bolt pattern for some good old Warn hubs.

I personally prefer the FAD. Unless i was serious in some rock crawling, i don't see a reason for hubs, you have 2 hubs that can fail, vs the single FAD that's pretty bullet proof. I've had manual and auto hubs in the past, and honestly, I think the FAD drives better in 4x4.

Maybe has nothing to do with it, and I have no idea why, but it doesn't seem to bind when turning in 4x4 like all my past jeeps have done with hubs.

Then getting auto hubs to actually unlock can take a little bit, where the fad unlocks when you tell it to.

The FAD has some advantages I don't think many have thought of. Less weight, less unsprung weight, easy to replace, simple operation, locks unlocks when commanded immediately, less to bind.

I just don't see a reason for hubs honestly. Or at least have not ran into an issue where having hubs would of been better than the FAD in my use case.

 

[GeekJT]

With manual hubs you have the option of 2WD low by simply not locking them in.

By not locking them in, you would have 1 wheel drive unless you have rear locker on.

 

[SoK66]

By not locking them in, you would have 1 wheel drive unless you have rear locker on.

Yep. Or, if you have a LSD in the rear it would be unaffected and work normally. I'm not sure how the BLD feature ("Brake Lock Differential" where the ABS stops a spinning or slipping wheel) would be affected.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

With manual hubs you have the option of 2WD low by simply not locking them in.

Why would I want that?
It's also going to depend on your transfer case - don't lock them in and you might be left going nowhere in some vehicles

 

[SoK66]

Why would I want that?
It's also going to depend on your transfer case - don't lock them in and you might be left going nowhere in some vehicles

Well, think about it. Tighter turning radius, no bound up front axle shafts, diff, t-case, etc. The Atlas 2 transfer case has a 2lo feature that rocks. Crawlers use it all the time.

 

[RudeJeepin]

I personally prefer the FAD. Unless i was serious in some rock crawling, i don't see a reason for hubs, you have 2 hubs that can fail, vs the single FAD that's pretty bullet proof. I've had manual and auto hubs in the past, and honestly, I think the FAD drives better in 4x4.

Maybe has nothing to do with it, and I have no idea why, but it doesn't seem to bind when turning in 4x4 like all my past jeeps have done with hubs.

Then getting auto hubs to actually unlock can take a little bit, where the fad unlocks when you tell it to.

The FAD has some advantages I don't think many have thought of. Less weight, less unsprung weight, easy to replace, simple operation, locks unlocks when commanded immediately, less to bind.

I just don't see a reason for hubs honestly. Or at least have not ran into an issue where having hubs would of been better than the FAD in my use case.

Saying you had vehicles that drove better in 4wd cause they had FADs instead of locking hubs is comparing apples to oranges.
Once you lock the hubs or the FAD, your in 4wd with both vehicles. So you have the same amount of parts turning. Both rigs would have the front Ujoints turning, that is were the felt bind is coming from. Unless the FAD rig had CV joints instead of Ujoints.

This thread is also about manual locking hubs and not auto hubs.
But I've seen were the FAD binds and takes a bit to unlock, just like auto hubs can.


If I still had my old CJ, it would of been converted to manual locking hubs at all four corners. Then I could flat tow it behind a motorhome once we get one in a few years.

 

[RudeJeepin]

Why would I want that?
It's also going to depend on your transfer case - don't lock them in and you might be left going nowhere in some vehicles

Think about the possibilities, your smart enough to come up with a few.
Maneuvering a trailer around in tight quarters. Especially in tight quarters in reverse.

 

[GeekJT]

Saying you had vehicles that drove better in 4wd cause they had FADs instead of locking hubs is comparing apples to oranges.
Once you lock the hubs or the FAD, your in 4wd with both vehicles. So you have the same amount of parts turning. Both rigs would have the front Ujoints turning, that is were the felt bind is coming from. Unless the FAD rig had CV joints instead of Ujoints.

This thread is also about manual locking hubs and not auto hubs.
But I've seen were the FAD binds and takes a bit to unlock, just like auto hubs can.


If I still had my old CJ, it would of been converted to manual locking hubs at all four corners. Then I could flat tow it behind a motorhome once we get one in a few years.

See that's what I was thinking, that it should be about the same, but in 4x4 i don't get the binding when doing a tighter turn that I had with the 2013 wrangler. Only real difference is the hubs / fad up front.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Think about the possibilities, your smart enough to come up with a few.
Maneuvering a trailer around in tight quarters. Especially in tight quarters in reverse.

If I had a manual, yeah. A lot of times I wish my SX4 had a low side transfer case.
Reverse is always geared so damned high, and with a stick, it's a bitch just backing up a long driveway (one thing that got me into the habit of backing into the garage.
But with an automatic, the TC handles it for me.

Saying you had vehicles that drove better in 4wd cause they had FADs instead of locking hubs is comparing apples to oranges.
Once you lock the hubs or the FAD, your in 4wd with both vehicles. So you have the same amount of parts turning. Both rigs would have the front Ujoints turning, that is were the felt bind is coming from. Unless the FAD rig had CV joints instead of Ujoints.

This thread is also about manual locking hubs and not auto hubs.
But I've seen were the FAD binds and takes a bit to unlock, just like auto hubs can.


If I still had my old CJ, it would of been converted to manual locking hubs at all four corners. Then I could flat tow it behind a motorhome once we get one in a few years.

Automatic hubs sucked. But there were times even the manual Warn hubs I put on my last Ford were a SOB to get unlocked. If things were not perfect, every piece of that drivetrain would get wound up.
For that truck, the one and only way to go was quality manual locking hubs.

Let's not even mention automatic hubs. They just plain suck.

 

[Rusty PW]

I installed locking hubs on my Power Wagon. My Ford F250 working truck has locking hubs. When the first snow comes. I lock the hubs in. Won't unlock them until spring. My work truck, some days it sees 400 miles. Avg about 120 miles a day. If my JT had a non FAD axle. I would be installing locking hubs.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I installed locking hubs on my Power Wagon. My Ford F250 working truck has locking hubs. When the first snow comes. I lock the hubs in. Won't unlock them until spring. My work truck, some days it sees 400 miles. Avg about 120 miles a day. If my JT had a non FAD axle. I would be installing locking hubs.

You wanted to unlock the hubs on mine as soon as you were not needing 4 wheel drive, otherwise turning was a bitch, it jerked on turns, squealed tires and so on.
it was horrible with them locked. That was ok, though, I never forgot to unlock them after a few times.

 

[JTGuy]

Manuel hubs at the front knuckles can be used to isolate a broken knuckle U-joint and get home . I installed the Yukon hub kit on my 2014 JKUR, It Kept me busy during Covid lockdown. I also did my 2003 Ram 2500with the Dynatyrac hub kit. If there was a quality kit for the JT , I would possibly do it. Remember, with the CAD the spiders are still spinning all the time. My question is, how strong are those manual hubs with 37s on them?
he has lots of very negative reviews on other Jeep forums. Sadly I think this kit is sub par for our JT.

 

[RudeJeepin]

Since I started this thread, I'll give my 2cents.
With the fad in place, I personally don't really see installing hubs. If I had one of the newer ones without the factory fad delete, I'd probably just add the fad motor and wire it to a switch.

Now, if I ever replace the front axle assembly, I'd go with hubs. But honestly, I don't see a well maintained Dana 44 not being enough for my use. Currently on 35s, probably wont run 37s anytime soon. Maybe someday, just for shits and giggles, I'll retube the one side to get rid of the fad housing and use one piece axle shafts. I could set caster and pinion angle separately to match whatever lift height I was gonna run. Then I'd run hubs, but I'd also switch to 5×5.5 bolt pattern to get a bigger hub assembly. While I was at it, I might even look into a full float rear axle, or convert mine. Then I'd probably put a set of hubs back there and run slugs in it. Saving the locking hubs to flat tow it.
Most of this is just bench building and probably will never happen. Or, atleast not until I retire.

 

[Hoist]

I grew up in Michigan with 4wheel drive and locking hubs. Played hard too and didn’t have issues. 72 Blazer, 90 dodge 3/4 ton Dana 44 I converted the CAD to locking hubs By replacing spur gear with warn hub and flipping the CAD fork (like FAD different name). Had F250s and didn’t care for vacuum auto hub and hate the newer one piece wheel hubs that cost four times as much. Not that hard to grease a wheel bearing and 50 bucks as apposed to 250 on a big ford 4wd for the newer one piece wheel hubs makes more sense.
Never had a problem, i was smart enough to know if it was snowing, or I was going off road, I’d lock the hubs. This isn’t rocket science and it’s a simple system. If you want a Mall crawler just buy a 2wd.

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