By The Jeep Wrangler sports a heroic ancestry, spread across decades of rock- and mall- crawling alike. The soft top, removable doors, four-wheel drive drivetrain, and rugged styling make the Wrangler Sahara and Rubicon staples of offroading and overlanding, while power windows, adaptive cruise control, and Uconnect allow the four-door Wrangler Unlimited Moab to be a favorite of rappers and soccer moms all over. Most Jeep Wranglers come from the Toledo factory equipped with an open differential, which works well in every day, on-road driving conditions. However, if one wheel loses traction in mud or sand, it spins helplessly. This is where it’s useful to have a limited slip or locking differential in your Wrangler.
Unless you have a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon or Moab, your Wrangler most likely will have an open differential. Certain submodels such as the Sahara and the Sport S have factory optional rear limited slip differential (LSD).
What Does my Jeep Come With?
JKs and JLs that don’t feature lockers or LSDs are equipped with what’s called a Brake Lock Differential (BLD). BLD is a system that mimics the action of a locking differential using the braking system. BLD uses the wheel speed sensors to recognize when one wheel on a driven axle is turning and the other is not. BLD will apply brake pressure to the wheel that is turning. However, while BLD will get you unstuck, it doesn’t operate like a locking differential while driving. Even Jeep states in their corporate online blog that “from the Jeep perspective, BLD is not a substitute for a locking differential.”
What is an Open Differential?
Open differentials come standard on most Wranglers. They are gear sets designed to allow one wheel to rotate faster or slower when you are driving on a paved road. This because when you take a turn, your Jeep’s outside wheels will turn faster because it has to travel farther than your inside tires. This helps prevent your wheels from hopping around turns, and reduces tire wear.
This system works best when both wheels have an even amount of traction, which is easy on pavement. However, when you are off-road it is easy for one wheel to have more traction than the other causing one to spin and for you and your Jeep stay right where you are.
What is a Limited Slip Differential?
Limited slip differentials combine the benefits of an open and a locked differential. They are designed to act like an open differential in most driving conditions. In conditions where both wheels have an equal amount of traction and the vehicle is not turning, an LSD will spin both wheels at the same speed with an equal amount of torque. They are less common on Wranglers than open differentials, but if you didn’t order a limited slip differential from the factory there are several available as aftermarket upgrades.
There are two common types of limited slip differentials. The first are clutch type, which use wet friction clutches to control how much goes to each wheel. An example of this is the Yukon Gear & Axle YDGD44-3-30-1 Dura Grip Positraction. The other type of LSD is gear-driven. Gear-driven LSDs use helical-shaped gears that mesh with increasing force as one wheel slips and transfer torque to the high-traction wheel. The GRIP PRO Powertrax GT444430 Traction System is a gear-driven LSD.
What is a Locking Differential?
A locking differential or ‘locker’ is designed to solidly connect both wheels of the same axle together so they both move at the same speed with the same amount of force. Without a locker, it would be difficult to do any rock crawling, as neither an open or limited slip differential could handle the changes in traction between different rocks and angles.
While taboo in the past, there are now locking differentials that can be used in street driving, where 100% of the power is delivered to both wheels while still providing disengagement for negotiating a turn. Yukon Gear & Axle’s YGLD44-3-30-JK Grizzly Locker is an aftermarket option that will keep you steady without killing your tires.
An Air Locker is the latest in on-demand traction. Its air-operated design allows you to switch from an open differential to 100% locked when you need it. Air-locking differentials like the Yukon Gear & Axle YZLD30 Zip Locker provide outstanding adaptability. The Yukon Zip locker is an air operated locker that provides selectable traction for everything from heavy off-road use to highway driving.
Motoroso offers a wide range of open, clutch-type and gear-type limited slip, and locking differentials to provide you one of the widest online selections of differentials for your Wrangler and any of the wild terrain you might encounter!
