Weight in the bed doesn't help much. If you add enough weight, it just gives it the advantage that a front wheel drive has in the snow versus a rear wheel drive. The problem is, FWDs aren't that great in the snow either, even if they are better than RWD.

I was riding around town (as a passenger) yesterday in my friend's FWD minivan while it was snowing, and there were two hills that he couldn't make it up. The first hill wasn't a big deal, because he was able to take an alternate route, but the second hill was the only path to our destination. He made it about a quarter of the way up it and we had to walk the rest of the way. These were all recently plowed town roads with maybe an inch or two of new snow on them.

4WD makes a world of difference in the snow. On a scale of 1 to 10, with RWD pickups rating a 1, and FWD vehicles (or a sufficiently weighted-down RWD pickup) rating maybe a 2 or a 3, a 4WD is easily a 10.

My town is not only extremely hilly (it is located in a valley), but many of the hills are very steep. With a 4WD pickup, I've never found a hill on a public road I couldn't make it up with ease, regardless of the road conditions.

 

how do you get the front drive shaft off of the T-case yoke iv pulled all the bolts out and cant get it to budge at all am i missing some thing the back one was easy...

 

you have to lift up on it, if you have the front diff ujoint removed its easier.

 

if you have all the bolts out of bothe ends of the shaft, push and pull front to back to yank one end out and shortin the shaft. if the rear(tcase end) is still stuck, use a pry bar or flathead to get in there and wiggle it loose. sometimes they get stuck on the yolk.

 

A Local Machinist said he was willing to rebuild my existing driveshaft... much cheaper than buying one online... does anyone know the size of the Universal joint I would need to replace the stock CV-Joint??

Thanks in advance!

 

you cant replace the cv with a u joint. the end of the shaft doesnt have the correct yolk/ flange to use a u joint. you will need a new cv joint to go in there. i replaced mine, and it was not real hard at all.