I'm new to the board and I don't think there's a discussion on the topic of upgrading an van's open axle to limited slip or a locker, so I'm reaching out. I"m looking for better performance on mud, snow and ice. I have a 2000 3500 Ram Van that I use for work and play. It's outfitted with ladder racks, bins, and cage and makes an excellent service vehicle. However, I still need to get it to the job site and here in upstate NY that means plowing through snow on a regular basis. I have excellent studded snows on but the open axle just isn't working well enough, so I want to install limited slip or a locker. I know it sounds wierd to put a locker in a van but I've got to bust through some awful stuff, like the six inches of snow that are in my driveway now.
Can anybody point me in the direction of a thread or other source on the topic? A lot of threads I've found on the topic seem to be about high performance street cars/trucks -- not my situation. Also, any input on LS vs. locker?
I'm shopping around for a used axle but the ones I'm finding are not L/S and a used open axle is $800 - $1000, plus pick up and install, and then it's probably going to have 75,000 - 100,000 miles on it so who knows whether the disks in the L/S have any life left. So, I'm leaning towards a rebuild of the diff.
Thanks!