Outer Limits 4x4 Board

I dont know enough about it , but would it be effective and advantagous to be able to select which wheels you want to drive from , ie -

* 1 wheel drive whichever wheel
* 2 wheel drive which ever combination
* 3 wheel drive which ever combination
* 4 wheel drive locked.


All this at the flick of a switch , also is it legal that this can be done in the rules ??

Where i think it may help but im not talking from experience is sometimes you may,

" not want " all wheels getting traction when your balancing on rocks , or obstacles becuse they will force you to go in the wrong direction , or fall off the obstacle ,

so you can engage or disengage what ever wheel you want or dont want to get traction so that you can go which way you want ,

ie :

if your balancing and you want to turn sharp left or want to go left over some ridiculous obstacle that your are balancing on but can't risk going forward to much ,

you can select both wheels on the left hand side to drive and disengage the right hand side ,

which in effect would make you turn hard left , and not go straight at all .

I am sure there are many other senarios that this could be useful , any other ideas would be great.

What do you guys think ??
Would it be a total waste of time ??
And is it possible ??


Cheers
Hey Charger.

yes it is possible and yes people use it

cutting brakes
airlockers
and rear disconnect (or front disconnect for rear engine)

Can you select whatever wheel or wheels , when ever you want and on the fly ???

If so , can some one explain to me how it works pls ???

Well I can see how it could be really easy for 4 electric motors

There have been some veicles with motorcycle engines driving individual wheels.

The more likely scenario is a 4wd with rear or front disconnect (normally a rear for a part time 4wd but a full time 4wd might want switchable to rear only). There are a few people out here with this kind of setup.


In europe they have like a "trials" type event and the vehicles have individual brakes (line lockable) to assist in manouevering.

But they run very different (much tighter) courses and are normally all wheel steer too.

Dunno if anyone is running such a setup out here (rear steer + 4 line lockers), but the euro ones are usually manual brake locks via lever.

An electronic control one would be better since you're more likley to spend too much time stuffing around working on this brake then that one.

OK Beastmavster ,
i understand the front and rear disconnects , but how would you select the two left hand side wheels only to drive or the two right hand side wheels only to drive without using linelockers or brakes??

Using One engine , one gearbox , and one transfer and no electric motors ??

But also how advantageous would this be to have this ability ??

Yes and no.

Can't see much use for one wheel drive.

You have also got it mixed up, from the example above where you disengage the right drive and transfer drive to the left, it would in fact allow you to tightly to the RIGHT.

StrangeRover has worked out a few things like this with the Haultech Traction Control System.

There are heaps of little things that work and don't work, what you have mentioned will assist in some way towards rockcrawling.

i was actually thinkin about this very set-up the other day after watchin the haulin and crawlin 2 dvd

the way i was thinkin was by having levers in the cab to use the brakes individually, and by applying the go pedal letting the open/un-locked differential applying drive to the un-braked wheel
dunno if it would work, but it might

Elmo wrote:i was actually thinkin about this very set-up the other day after watchin the haulin and crawlin 2 dvd

the way i was thinkin was by having levers in the cab to use the brakes individually, and by applying the go pedal letting the open/un-locked differential applying drive to the un-braked wheel
dunno if it would work, but it might

You need to come to WEROCK and watch some of the drivers closely to see what they are doing.

HEY CHARGER wrote:Can you select whatever wheel or wheels , when ever you want and on the fly ???

If so , can some one explain to me how it works pls ???

Unlock your airlockers and apply brakes to the wheels you dont want turning.

can do that many ways. As POS said the haultech traction control would make it easy, otherwise you could just put some valves in the brake line to each wheel, and use a solenoid to lock off the wheels you want spinning, anf put your foot on the brake.

its already booked in adrain, and i plan on coming over to your buggy as one of my first stops

what are they doing there anyway?? did i pretty much hit the nail on the head did i??

2 x 70 series front diffs with their finicky electric FWH would allow individual wheel control by switching the hubs as required.
Would possibly get a better result just by steering both diffs
J Top

OK , so i get everything through my thick skull ,
apart from the fact that you must use yor brakes to hold the wheel that you dont want to spin ,
so that must mean that , the braked wheel does not turn freely wouldnt that be a pain in the arse ??

wouldnt it be better if it was to freewheel ??? and not have brake pressure applied ??

Cheers.

ok,if im reading JTOP's post, you could switch off the freewheeling hub you dont want driving, but wouldnt all the power then transmit to the side with least resistance, meaning the unlocked side, would have all the power, unless you were running airlockers, that are either on or off, as auto lockers may unlock and itd be usless...........

get me?

You can get the deisred effect using 4 hubs that can be engaged or dis-engaged. This would be very diserable in rock crawling to enable a skid steer effect to push the vehicle sideways off/on to a good traction point, or to keep the rear in one place and traverse the fron sideways across a steep incline etc. Go to a RC event and watch it done. very impressive.

This way:
to drive front left only, lock front diffs, dis-engage all hubs execpt front left, done! 1 wheel drive
to drive both left wheels, lock both diffs, di-engage both right hubs, done left drive skid steer.
to drive rear right only, 2wd, lock diff, disengage rear left hub, done
to drive boths fronts only, lock both diffs, disengage both rear hubs, done
also normal combinations of locked rear 2wd, double locked 4wd etc

What do you think? all you really need for the set you you are talking aboue is 4 hubs that can be engaged and disengaged remotly

ozy1 wrote:ok,if im reading JTOP's post, you could switch off the freewheeling hub you dont want driving, but wouldnt all the power then transmit to the side with least resistance, meaning the unlocked side, would have all the power, unless you were running airlockers, that are either on or off, as auto lockers may unlock and itd be usless...........

get me?

yup, need air lockers or CIG lockers.

the hubs wouldnt disengage immediately, especially if theres any sort of windup, biut would still be quit effective.

Problem is most of the electronically or vacuum controlled hubs are pretty pissweak bit you could probably build a beefy one.


Even better would be if you could have the left drive forwards while the right drives backwards like on a bobcat or forklift.