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It has 38 x 15.5 x 15 Mudders on 14" wide rims, rear locker and 5.29 gears. On that note our view on what makes a "light snowy road" is clearly different. I prefer having traction and keeping up speed than spinning wheels and sliding through every turn. My hubs are fixed so I don't have to get out to fiddle with a knob.
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If you only use them once or twice a year why not save the $$$ and get more technical. I have to use my locker in over 90% of my offroading and during the winter it's on almost the whole trip. Personaly I would love a front locker and a second t-case but that is going in the GC.
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I was speaking in general and should of stated that in the previous post (my bad), but since you never use your lockers the AWD would be a great choice for you.

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SWEET!!! Nice rig!!!

A 'light' snowy road in town here is about 2" covering a sheet of ice - depending on who you talk to of course.:-) Most of the people here think that's a catastrophie. MY definition of 'light' is more like 10" to 15". But, with the tires I run I really don't have traction issues in 2WD until I hit about the 2' mark.

Full time locked hubs, though, are NOT an option. If something goes wrong in the front I want to be able to disconnect a wheel from the axle shaft. In addition, I have a 17" front drive shaft with a HUGE CV and a high-pinion Dana with a lot of rotation - all of which works perfectly up to about 55MPH (and that's fine) but none of which is designed to run full time. Besides, sucks too much gas for no reason. Even if you're not driving it that's still a lot of rotating mass. And, rarely, but every once in a while I want the entire rig locked and then I want to be able to unlock one hub. There's one really tight (lots of trees), off camber trail here that's usually muddy and locking the axles helps keep everything from sliding all over (into trees). Unfortunately, I can't turn tight enough with both front wheels locked together so I unlock one hub, make the turns and move on.

But, even off road in the winter I don't use the lockers that much - hardly at all. We were up spring before last in 4-5' and the only time I used the lockers was to pull myself out of a hole I sunk into when I parked. I don't know if you've been in a vehicle with front and rear lockers and big grippy tires like ours, but you can't turn worth a darn. Having the axles locked just causes steering issues and is more of a pain than help most of the time. Try steering on slick rock in Moab sometime with an axle locked.

Where the lockers DO come in handy is in the sand washes around Moab. Dumped myself into some quicksand and needed everything locked up and the winch to get back out. Still washing red sand out of my undercariage from that.

But, the reason I don't use the lockers much is because I don't need to. Same reason guys can 2WD run pre-runners with a single locker over stuff most people need 4WD for. Really good tires and a really well designed suspension make a big difference. We used to screw with the Jeep and Bronco guys on a gravel mogul hill here outside town all the time before I even did the SAS. I has so much articulation in the back coupled with the 33" Geolandar M/Ts that I could drive that hill all day long without loosing traction. We used to watch and laugh at the guys in the locked Jeeps, Toys and stuff get stuck half way up with two tires suspended and two spinning gravel. Got some great lessons in how stuff works there, that's for sure.

Nope. I'll leave the dual t-case to Nathan. At least for a couple more years. Think I'm going to dump the Richmond 6-speed in next winter. Who knows, maybe I'll dump the exra t-case in at the same time.

Edward

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'97 Montero Sport LS 5-Speed 3.5L conversion
SAS Dana 44s & ARBs, 35" Yoko Geolandar M/Ts
NP231 B4R doubler/Terra Low231/RP 5.38 228:1
'03 Montero Sport Limited AWD
'97 Montero Sport LS 5-Speed 3-link/SAS project

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