Do you have any experience with having a locker in the front end?
Cause I do. And I don't see where your statement of "the cv's can't handle the stress" has any validity.
I've had a lockright in my front end for a year and a half. I wheel the piss out of my truck. I've got 35's. I've wheeled in Moab, The Hammers, and practically everywhere there is to wheel in SoCal and I've broken 1 CV in that year and a half. And it was a complete accident, on a snow run, bombing up a hill and I slid off line into a rock with too much momentum.
The CV's can take it just fine as long as you know how to drive.

So please, if you don't have experience with something, don't talk like you do.

 

li'l info on d.c. snow:

it either snows like crazy, or not at all. and it's not the snow you'll have trouble with. it's the 3 million other drivers on the road at rush hour getting stuck in the snow. i hit a volvo (well, not really "hit" as much as "got aquainted with"), and i'm still willing to bet if i had a locker, it wouldn't have happened. so you will have to drive in the snow every now and again, but only about 10-15 days total out of the year.

 

Yeah I would love to get an elocker, but I am a little weary of tearing into my differential to modify it to fit...Man $300 is a steal for an elocker though, nice find!

I am definitely planning on having ECGS do all of the gearing work. I am going to just buy the complete assembled 3rds with the gears and lockers already installed so the install will be a simple drop-and-replace. Yeah that 5 year warranty is pretty sweet added bonus.

After regearing and lockers armor is next on my to do list. My front skid has seen better days, I could really use some rock sliders, and I have been dying to get a new front bumper ever since I discovered Shrockworks.

Thanks for the info Scoob, that makes me feel a lot more comfortable about getting Lockrights in the front and rear. Have you noticed any problems with the lockers in daily driving conditions? Anything I should be aware of?

Yeah I know that snow is pretty unpredictable up there....I was actually visiting family in Germantown, MD in February 2010 when that huge storm hit and dropped like 4 feet of snow in a weekend. My fiance actually got her car stuck at the bottom of a hill and had to abandon it pretty much in the middle of the street. I was kind of bummed that I didn't have my 4Runner with me, I wanted to see how it would handle the deep snow...I am hoping that having at least one locker will give me plenty of traction when I need it.

I think you will be just fine once you get that ARB installed

 

I do in fact have experience with lunchbox lockers in the front of an IFS rig, so don't talk to me like you know better. The reason your most likely not experiencing any problems (besides your awesome driving skills) is the fact that you have manual hubs in the front. 3rd gen 4Runners don't have manual hubs unless you convert them, so they are constantly spinning. So his CV's will spin during daily driving on hard asphalt and the jarring of a non-selectable locker in the front will eventually cause the CV to break. So if you don't have experience with a particular model of a vehicle that is not the same as yours, don't talk like you do.

 

Not really. The rear end can be unpredictable sometimes. But once you have it in there for a while you'll learn how to drive with it (when to clutch, when to let off the gas, etc...). I'm pretty sure you have an auto trans. I've heard that with an auto trans the rear locker is pretty transparent. More so than a manual trans at least. I wouldn't worry about, man.

 

Yeah I do have an auto tranny so I don't have to worry about shifting, etc. Thanks for the info!

 

I keep hearing really good things about Aussie lockers. There a relatively new company, and are supposed to be easier to install then the Lockrites.

 

how are they new? they have been around for awhile and the install is the same as a lockrite