Tony, you definitely don't want the handbrake dragging. It can burst into
flame if the rear seal has allowed oil or grease to get onto it but you
normally notice the smoke and fumes before that - check the clearances.
There were some French-made 11:00 x 18s around that people fitted to DUKWs
and ran with just 2" clearance because of a slightly larger rolling
radius, so I'd suggest you make up four back wheels which you could fit
without DUKW spacers since you'd be setting the offset as part of the
wheel-building anyway. Put on the cheap tyres and try it, you'll probably
find you don't need to do the axle shifting.
Transfer cases always howl on these trucks - DUKWs are worse because of
the steel box construction. If you haven't already done so try running
the truck with one or two tons load in it, which generally makes them run
a lot nicer.
Gordon
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Dec 07 2001 - 00:36:25 PST