....but there's an odd mentality in Colorado that all cars must be AWD or 4WD for the 4 days a year that we get snow.
That odd mentality exists everywhere, especially in 4x4 forums. You can fix that easily! A little lift, some mud tires and 4x4 badges.
.....if I can't get this TCM thing figured out I'll just part it out and send the shell to the yard.
If you suspect a bad TCM, replace it with another one from a junk yard.
I figured if the only downside to the welded diff was squeaky parking lot maneuvers, no big deal.
It's not an unreasonable conclusion, if you were only looking at that. But there are reasons why we need a differential, least of which is safety....
I am curious though, with the ominous warnings, what have you personally seen go wrong with a welded diff? The anti-crowd says they kill you, the pro-crowd says they daily them daily.
If you're a competent welder, then the task of welding up the spiders, is no big deal. OTOH I've seen bird sh*t welds that fail and eat the rear end. Idiots who chose the ground the housing and end up fuzing the bearings, etc.
But lets say the diff is welding up good and tight with no possibility of failure. Handling is going to be affected. Much of that can be controlled and you can adapt to it. But here is what's going on. The world is not a straight line. Every time you enter a turn, the tires will be fighting each other for traction. One tire is going to lose this fight and that means it has to slip or slide. This is why you would hear tire squeal in tight parking lot maneuvers. Under most circumstances, you can adapt to this with driving technique, but there are a few circumstances when the fight for traction comes up a draw, meaning both tires lose traction at the same time. It can happen for example when the ground is wet and the turn is tight. The truck enters the turn, the tires fight for traction, with one forced to slide while the other forced to slip. The result can be a spin out. At slow speed, you might be able to sense it before it happens and make steering corrections. At a little higher speed you maybe able to handle a slow speed drift, but at highway speeds, you can lose control, and at those speeds, it could be fatal.
But what about dry pavement? The same physics apply. Even on dry pavement, having both tires fighting each other for traction is not a good thing. If you had a magnifying glass and could see the point of contact between tire and road, when a tire slides or slips, for example slamming the brakes, the rubber heats up, burns and tiny microscopic chunks begin to roll up and peel off. The tire rides on tiny rubber rollers at that stage. We see this as skid marks, and this is why manufacturers developed things like anti lock brakes and traction control. They keep the tires rolling and not skidding to maintain traction. The slipping /sliding effect of a welded diff isn't as apparent as say jamming on the brakes in a panic stop, and you won't really see skid marks, but it's still there. You would experience this as accelerated tire wear.
As for the people who say they DD their welded diff trucks, I call them lucky. No one can change the laws of physics. When a tire has to slip, it loses traction. Even very tiny amounts of slip results in small losses in traction. The thing about traction loss is it can rapidly grow. A windshield crack can be very small for a long time, then one day it grows to the full width of the glass in a micro second! It's not that you were warned that the glass would completely crack, but that you knowing lived with it.
As for accidentally getting into snow or other bad weather, no chance.
About a couple of decades ago, I used to own an early model Bronco. It didn't have a top, so I only drove it when the sun was shining. I would never drive it when rain was predicted. Until the day I had to drive it in the rain. It wasn't supposed to rain, but rain it did. I believe riders deal with this too, but the good ones always prepare to get caught in the weather. I wasn't prepared. No one can accurately predict the future.
Ed
