OMG!!!!! I have completely wasted 2 hours reading this.......With that much invested I have to post a reply.
NDT tires: NDT stands for Non Directional Tread. They are not great traction tires. And everyone including the goobermint knows it/knew it. If they wanted shear traction they would have put tractor tread tires on them and went all over the world. NDT has a tactical purpose. They were used so that the enemy had a difficult time figuring out which way the tracks left by the tires were going. It was so the enemy could not tell very easily if you were coming or going.......Kind of like this thread.
Lockers: Selectable lockers are great pieces of technology that I, and many others, feel should be on every vehicle. However, I think with the exception of ones that are driven by inexperienced operators. Which is one of the design parameters considered when the M35 was designed and built. It was going to be run primarily by inexperienced drivers.
Install lockers in all 3 axles of your deuce and find out how undriveable it is in the conditions you are decribing it to be superior compared to the Factory m35's. With all three axles locked up you will likely be on rails in the mud hole or obstacles you want to navigate. Yes it will likely move forward and back where a stock deuce won't but you will not be able to turn or maneuver. Granted you have the option of selecting lockers or combinations of lockers to be able to maneuver. But that takes skill and experience.........hence why they were not in a factory deuce.
Lockers are not a eutopia. If lockers were the greatest things since sliced bread all over the road trucks would come with lockers and they would NEVER run tire chains again. If the OTR truckers could just flip a switch for a selectable locker and away they went they would do it in a heartbeat even if it cost them $10,000 per axle. The down time due to chaining up and the maintenance cost to the trucks from chains coming loose is a heavy price. But they chain up because it's the only thing that gets them the traction the safely need......... Oh yeah. I forgot they have selectable air lockers in OTR trucks and busses. And they still chain up. HMMMMM. Food for thought.
Lockers or tire chains? I'd choose tire chains. There is more utility in tire chains. Hence why tire chains were available for deuces in service.
If I had to choose an axle locker or a winch I would choose a winch all day long every time hands down. There is sooooooo much more utility in a winch as compared to an axle locker.........Hence why the deuces were equiped with winches over axle lockers.
Great example. Last weekend me and my 4X4 club went to a trail here in CO called Holy Cross. Google it. There's a creek called French Creek. It was swollen with runoff and had a 4 foot lip of snow on the opposite side of the creek. Our Jeeps are locked up and on 36's or bigger. We could get up on the snow bank but would dig in. Ran some winch rope out to a tree and rolled right up on top of the snow. Lockers + snow = dug in. Winch + snow = pulled up and over.
I would have a front and rear winch instead of one in the middle of the rig. If one winch fails you have one winch and you are done. End of story. Two winches is redundant. Two winches provides you with double the utility. There are several reasons hard core rock crawler guys run front and rear winches.
I wheel my deuce 14 miles back into a hunting camp that the road is just barely wide enough to accept the deuce. I have M800 series trucks and they are too big. So it's the right size small, big truck for serious back country adventures.
While wheeling the loaded deuce into camp 14 miles on a road that is no great obstacle for most modern equipment (body damage is likely due to rocks, ledges and stumps so you don't want to take a rig of any value on it) I am exhausted by the time I get to camp. The trip can take 2-3 hours to make the 14 miles just solid driving. If you plan on wheeling 80% of the way from Alaska to Cape Horn off of improved surfaces you will either have to be Superman or it will take you years to make it that far. Without power steering you will break your thumbs on the steering wheel several times. You will punch your hand and elbow into the drivers door when the steering wheel kicks back. And after a week of solid wheeling you will physically be spent and need to rest for several days. And that is if you don't have mechanical break downs, flat tires or are stuck much. And I'm not pulling a trailer. The truck and trailer combo is pretty much unuseable in tight, hard wheeling conditions.
All deuces should have come with power steering like the 5 tons. But they didn't. And they didn't because there was less to fail in a manual steering system. Keep in mind these are tactical vehicles. Not one off custom specialized vehicles. They had a purpose, a job. And they had guys that needed to maintain a large fleet. If they could reduce some down time and maintenance hours due to not maintaining a power steering system that's what they sacrificed. In those days they had power steering by armstrong. You had to eat your Wheaties to drive one.........And if they had lockers in them they would need power steering.
Wheeling in the rain forrest: I would not take a deuce, in any configuration, boondocking into the rain forrest. Heat + Humidity + Hot deuce motor + no A/C + you = Miserable. What do you do when you run into a river you can't cross? Backtrack? Third world improved roads are like our slightly maintained forrest roads here. If you took a deuce boondocking into the rain forrest it would likely end up like a lot of the old 4X4 trucks I find in ravines, the back country forrests and wilderness here in CO. It would be left for dead and trees would be growing through it in a few years.
Keep this in mind with regard to the greatest high capacity winches. You are stuck. The winch is on your truck. You have to anchor the winch to something on the other end. Let's say your anchor is a tree in the rain forrest. How much winching can that tree take before it topples over on you? I see this happening regularly when we winch our Jeeps out of obstacles in the forrest. That's why there are anchor points on most of the tough obstacles on our trails. The anchor point is a steel rod drilled into a big azz rock with a shakle welded on top.......Unless I'm wrong the natives in Central and South America are not likely putting out winch points in the Rain Forrest just in anticipation of your comming.
And BTW if you should happen to make it as far as the rain forrest with a deuce. Bring about 20 chainsaws and have Sthil sponsor you.........You may be an ole' foolosipher but I don't think you have pondered this part of your proposed trip very carefully.
If you think that Russian truck is the greatest thing on 6 wheels buy one. Don't wast any more money on a deuce. Then I suggest you bring it out here to CO. I guarantee I can bring out EVERY flaw in the design of that truck that you don't think it has. Again......Not a eutopia.
I know you mentioned rock crawling a deuce in your post.......Me and my 4X4 club do the rock crawling thing. We do some hard core stuff. Holy Cross is a mild trail for us. It's considered an 8 out of 10 trail. Holy Cross is our scenic trail with the ghost town and everything. The Independence Trail System in Penrose, CO is difficult. Google the Indy system. Look for the Patriot trail. That's rock crawling. Moab, Utah. Black Hills SD. That's rock crawling.........A deuce WILL NOT do that. In it's factory form the suspension is too limited to rock crawl. Please.......I'm begging you......Don't mention rock crawling and deuce in the same sentence again.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a hater of your proposed adventure or your proposed mods to your deuce. I hot rod everything I have. It's in my nature to do so. And I have many adventures to amazing places in lots of different types of equipment. I 4X4, ATV, UTV, go boating, snowmobiling, RVing, I'm a pilot, I own several differnt types of military equipment and hardware from different war eras, I hunt and fish, I camp, and I'm a farmer with all the related equipment and responsibilities....................I just don't like your attitude. You make it clear you think you are somebody because you have, excuse me, are getting an education and are seeking a PHD in something.
So far.......You haven't shown me you have done anything. But you talk big like you have. You talk like that Russian truck is the absolute bomb because you saw it on YouTube. Ever see one in person? And you went wheeling in the woods with some guys with lockers. So what?
You asked for opinions of some extremly experineced guys and proceeded to argue with them about their experiences and opinions. Unreal! I just don't see the logic in that. Rather than ask questions and ponder the answers so you can ask follow up questions you tell people what their answers should be.......... We've seen your kind before. My beef and a lot of the other guys on SS's beef is not that you think you are educated.......It's that you are psuedo educated. You have thinly veiled your thoughts of superiority based on your Philosphy studies while slumming it with us over here on SS........
Here it is 2 years later and you still haven't done anything you said you would. Any number of guys on this website would have bent over backwards to help you out but you have snubbed us all with your attitude.
Make no mistake. I have no intention of educating you. After seeing your responses 2 years after this post started I know you are a lost cause. I'm merely posting for my own personal gratification.
So post up some pictures when you actually do something more than run through a mud puddle.