Permanent differential lock on FWD car?

[gatiszvejnieks]

Hello, I have old volkswagen golf mk2 (manual transmission) that is not worth to fix to make road legal(too much rust). It is worth only so much as metal by weight, so there is nothing to loose.

I plan to weld-lock differential to make golf more-offroad capable so both front wheels will be locked permanently, and put some chains on wheels. It will newer be used on public roads, or driven faster then 15 mph.(only first gear or rear)

Will it be drivable at all, and any improvements on muddy or heavy snowed roads?

I recently moved to rural property where i would like to have a tractor or 4×4, but at the moment cant afford one.
Already now I have a lot of uses for this juck car on my multi-acker rural property, but as the winter is comming soon it will be muddy and snowy and FWD car will get stuck to easy in offroad situation. I would like to impove offroad capabylities without investing any money.
Other use will be to support my dayly comuter hyundai Lantra (also FWD) on the last 1/2 mile road to my property. It is muddy in autum and spring and nobody is cleaning snow from this road in winter. So perheps I could use golf to clean snow and pull out my nomral FWD car from the mud or snow in case I get stuck.

Topic

[Erin]

It will shake like an SOB if you try to turn at all since the wheels will be spinning the same speed. In poor traction it will not be as noticeable. So if there is a way you could keep it in as straight a line as possible, even then you will notice it handles weird.

Funny the things we do to cars that we know are heading to the crusher anyways.

[EricTheCarGuy]

Steering will be where the issues will come in. If you drive it on pavement, it will hop all over the place. If it’s on dirt only, you should be fine. Not sure how much it will help though. That’s not exactly an off road vehicle. In short, I believe you’ll be limited by the vehicle itself in the end. Should be fun while it lasts.

Good luck and keep us posted.

[Author]

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