I don't understand some of your questions given the fact you have experience with lockers and spools. ??
hmm some explaining is in order, I guess I didnt read over my post enough after changing throughout wrighting it.
My expierence is with driving them off road, one truck with locker and hydraulic stearing, couple trucks with spools/welded, and even a few more that were manual steering with spool/welded witch later got the upgrade to hydraulic. Now mechanical expirence is to spools there easy to understand, ive helped put them in(2 axles) my self and drove them (and 5 or 6 others) they were the cheapest route and so basic they are
nearly idiot proof in design. now i should have said my expierence with lockers is limited to 2 trucks one in my Dads front 2.5 ton axle of his mud truck and one in his weekend driver 1/2 ton in the rear. I didnt get to see how the locker in the 2.5 ton was made so i didnt realy understand how they work, I did put the one in the rear of the weekend driver which he handed me the box and said he wanted it in that day so i didnt have time to look it over to much but i still dont understand how there supposed to be unlocked while coasting and how they lock up when under a load.
The one i put in just replaced spider gears so same principle as the 2.5 tons. 3 peices with teeth on the sides and i think 4 small springs about 1/4 OD(i realize that other locker setups have diffrent spring design) Its been quite a while since i put it in and if i rember right the springs tried to push the peices apart, so if the springs were pushing the peices apart what is supposed to pull them togeather to lock it under power.
I seem to have mis-understood the way it was worded
This is the cool thing about a Detroit locker, (This applies ONLY to the DL, the other lockers all work differently) as the outside wheel travels faster it unlocks from the diff and is free to go faster than the inside wheel which remains powered (or not powered if it is a drag axle because it is currently not being powered).
I thought as Oldman said that while being powered the faster spinning tire would unlock (being why i thought everyone said DL was superior over any locker) but seems other people on here and other companys state that it is while coasting that they(detroit and others) unlock.
I think you're grasping what I'm getting at.
If the front tandem is welded/spooled and has the OEM lockout kit, only one wheel has a lockout. The other wheel is still tied to the spool whether or not the other wheel is locked. Will the truck drive fine with the front tandem welded and the OEM lockout kit on one hub.
IMO It will drive and handle just like it would if it were open since there is no way to bind up between tires on the opposite sides of the akle. HOWEVER I think you could possibly have a problem in the future if your the kinda guy who likes to ram and jam, you would be putting all the stress of accelerating on the same axle/tire and in theory twice the torque it would normaly be under. Take an axle, we'll say it has a spool, if ya put X ft/lbs into the axle then half of the torque will go to each axle/tire, now lets say you have a single lock out, all the torque is going to go to the axle/tire that is still attached to the spool, while the side with the lock out is compleatly free to do as it wants. Ok now for people that like numbers (actual ratios could be wrong did a rough search, this is just to show idea) we'll say 1st gear, low side, one lockout, bobed duce. Trans ratio 6/1, t-case assume its 2/1, axle which is 6.72/1 so after some math you come up with 80.64/1, since torque is also multiplied the same way and if you have 300ft/lbs it becomes 24,192 ft/lbs, if two tires are powered then
12,096 ft/lbs per tire, if ya got the lock-out un-locked then all 24,192 is going to one tire which equals a whole lot of stress.
Hmm...will try to post pics of attempting to swap air shift case to let others have an idea of just how hard it could be due to lack of ground clearence. Got the case unbolted and sittin on a pallet (fairly easily 4-5 hours with wrenches, woulda done faster if it was close to shop and power tools, and getting quit dirty in the process) underneath the truck before I realized I didnt have the room to take it out from under the truck. I still have spare tire race and the tire still on it, and it looked to be pretty rusted so I kinda went another route. I should know later this week if ya can put it in without lifting the truck since the truck getting the t-case dosnt have the spare tire rack. I beleive it should but picking up the t-case with a forklift while someon else trys to install it could be harder than i think.
I, like many others, would realy want to install Arb lockers so if I do I will try to get pictures of anything interesting or finished product
Also have found a company that tops OEM in axle strength, OEM 2" shafts, gearharteng.com 2 9/16"
(unbreakable comes to mind)
EDIT: Skipped lines on Gear Hart 2 1/8 in "hybrid" axles, 2 9/16 5 ton oversized
Hate to cover so much in one post but it beats double posting and gettin jumped.