Powertrax or Aussie, which one? And why.

firehawk

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Date: Jan 26, 2009

Powertrax or Aussie, which one? And why.	Permalink

Beginning to look into one of these lockers more seriously. I've posted up a thread about this on JeepForum, and CherokeeTalk and wanted to ask around here too. I'm wanting all the feedback I can get. I want to make the "right" choice since I only want to do this once. My XJ is basicly a DD so I want good manners onroad, but want the added traction when wheeling it too. __________________ 2000 Cherokee Sport My Pics and Specs

dogwonk

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Date: Jan 26, 2009

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Kim,

Bob (rjontzen is his screen name) has an Aussie in his MJ. He drives it everyday, and if I remember correctly he has a decent commute. He lives in the Indy area.

I have only heard him say good things about it and I will tell you that his Comanche performs AMAZINGLY off road! He just crawls right up and over stuff so effortlessly.

He loves his MJ and takes really good care of it. So, I trust his opinion. Plus, he isn't crazy in the head and just gets stuff to have it, if you know what I mean.

He isn't on here very often, but if you send him a PM asking his opinion surely he will get an email notification about it. I assume that he will be on here checking about the Winterfest too.

Anyway, that is just a thought to help you get some "real life" opinions.

Good luck!

Oh, I would go with Aussies if I were doing it...

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LEAD_NOT_FOLLOW

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Date: Jan 26, 2009

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This is what I posted on another forum awhile ago on this discussion. I have a very good working relationship with Bill @ Aussie so take it for what it's worth...

Lock-Rite vs. Aussie...

The Aussie is about 30% larger, stronger (different steel), and a somewhat different design. Bill from Torq Masters (Aussie) was the one who designed the original Lock-Rite when he was Executive Vice President of Vehicular Technologies, Inc, that owned the Lock Right patents and brought the product to market in 1993.

Aussie doesn't require the "high strength cross shaft", the Lock Rite does because they use "shear pins", and the "high strength cross shaft" protects their "shear pins". The Aussie doesn't design their pins to break, so they don't need the extra strength of the cross shaft to keep the pins from breaking. The Aussie isn't an exact copy.

Bill designed the Aussie to be an improvement over the Lock Rite, so undoubtedly they share similarities; it's not like it's a complicated mechanism, and honestly you can't design it to be much more than it is.

And from Bill himself...

There are many differences between the Aussie Locker and the competition!

A few are:

Powertrax/Lock Right have for many years touted their "Shear Pins". They state that their pins are designed to shear/break when the locker gets in a certain position within the case. The so called "benefit" is that the pins break and not the locker. Aussie Locker takes a different design approach and designs our locker so that if it is properly installed, the locker will not get in the position that causes pins to break, therefore "No Shear Pins" in the Aussie Locker...our pins are designed to last the life of the locker.

Lock Right has patents and has touted their "spring-within-a-spring design. The Aussie Locker uses a robust spring that does not need two to provide strength and reliability. The EZ locker uses a little "top hat" to fit in the end of their spring". Fewer parts means higher reliability. Point to the Aussie Locker.

Lock Right and EZ use a design that have holes (windows) drilled in the sides of the axle gears and cam gears. Aussie Locker engineers feel that holes create opportunities for breakage and we do not use this design and have patents pending to cover our approach. We eliminate 8 side holes in our design. The use of these holes also requires little tunnels in the gears, close to the walls of the gear, where the pin and springs fit and we do not like that for reliability.

We use a teeth depth and angles for our product that our engineers have determined to be appropriate for the noise level, smoothness and reliability of our product. Other manufacturers use their own designs.

The Aussie Locker cam angles are of our design resulting in a design that meets our product objectives.

The Aussie Locker product undergoes a special and propriatary heat treating process to ensure long life and reliability.

Aussie Locker has a 100% quality audit under electronic microscopes where we measure specification conformance to the micron level. We will leave it to other manufacturers to specify their own quality level, but we are quite confident that ours is the best in the industry.

The Aussie Locker has the best warranty in the industry, with no "get out of jail free" cards the manufacturer can pull out if you have larger than OEM tires or high horsepower.

Probably more than you wanted to know... confuse

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Topic: Powertrax or Aussie, which one? And why.