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Duels with a little lift


Scott in Bellingham
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In my experience duals are terrible off-road. The space between the tires fills up with mud, and occasionally rocks get stuck in there too. This leads to a bunch of extra weight, and a loss of traction from the mud slick. I've broken 3" limbs trying to lever out stuff stuck in the duals of the dueces. Even the military has gone away from them in favor of more adanced single tire designs, and more axles for load bearing.

 

They are great for towing, and for carrying heavy loads, but for off-road they are just not the right technology. It's unsafe to air them down because as the two tires flex toward each other, things caught between them can puncture the sidewall. I've passed dualie trucks stuck in snow with my soob.

 

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how do you lock a rear.. sorry for the thread heist.. but just curious..

Good thing to do is start a new thread or do a search. The only way so far that we know of for Subaru's is weld the spider gears to the diff housing (no, not the bit you see when you look under the car, the bit that bolts the the crown wheel)

I have pictures in a post somewhere on here, wait a mo, here you go http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=65238

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There was an article in 4 wheeler a couple of years back, about a roadie for AC/DC. I digress, anyway he had a huge 4 door extended bed chevy 3/4 ton dually offroader, that did pretty well (at least the pictures would lead you to believe)

 

It was a southwest, dune runner which may be why it worked well, and wouldn't work well in the northwest.

 

I'd say go for it, at least in the rear, i'd say not so much in the front, but it would be cool to see anyway.

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Dual wheels will help in situations where you're looking for floatation, rather than traction. I've seen them a lot on quads where they're going through crazy mud or really boggy ground. However, if it's possible, you'd probably be better off with a single really wide tire.

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Dual wheels will help in situations where you're looking for floatation, rather than traction. I've seen them a lot on quads where they're going through crazy mud or really boggy ground. However, if it's possible, you'd probably be better off with a single really wide tire.

 

An aired down swamper would still have more contact patch than two full-pressure swamps of the same size..... this is one reason the military is doing away with the dual's on their trucks. Rubber compounds, and the advent of radial tires (yeah - I know the ARMY is a little behind the times tho) allows wider tires and CTIS systems. You can't air down dual's without serious risk of damage. The first Army rig with CTIS was the DUKW (amphibious 2.5 ton "duece"), and unlike all the other dueces it's got no duals. This, and it's amphibious nature prevented it from carrying a full 2.5 tons of cargo generally. It was a problem to say the least, and one of the reasons it was retired. The M35-A3 version of the duece (CAT turbo deisel) hasn't got duals either, as it's got the electronic cab-controled CTIS system.

 

Maybe for a quad - wide, low pressure tires..... yeah it might work for those, but I'm no quad expert either.

 

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