“Spools are for drag racing and off-highway use.” We’ve heard it before and we’re sure to hear it again. However, for our purposes a spool offers undeniable strength and greater traction than an open diff or a limited slip. Spools are less expensive than any other traction device and they actually have fewer handling drawbacks than most lockers. Until recently the only spools available were those that were popular for the straight-line drag racing and circle track crowd. These included 35-spline Dana 60s and Ford 9-inch units. There’s no question that both of these axles are popular swaps for Jeeps but most of us just don’t need and can’t afford that much axle.
The most common Jeep rear axle is probably the Dana 44. It can be found in almost every Jeep model from early CJs to Wagoneers and Cherokees, and even late model TJs. The internals have remained mostly unchanged. Anyone who wanted more traction from this axle had to settle for a weak locker, spend a king’s ransom for a strong locker, or go completely butch and weld the differential gears together. To give Jeepers another option, Randy’s Ring & Pinion had 30-spline Dana 44 spools custom-built.
We’ve had a spool on our mostly-trail rig for well over a year and wouldn’t change it out for the world. But we wanted to see if it was all that bad to have on a daily driver. We took our guinea pig ’97 TJ with a 4.0L, a five-speed, a 6-inch lift, and 35s to 4 Wheel Parts Performance Center in San Marcos, California, for the install. Our test rig sees a 150-mile commute five times a week.
As expected, the spool provides better traction off-road. We also expected the spool to cause the tires to bark and chirp in tight corners. Unfortunately, we were right. However, the 65 mph lane changes that are normally encountered with a manual transmission and an automatic locker were nonexistent. The spool did cause noticeable understeer on our TJ but it wasn’t anything that we couldn’t get used to.
Would we do it again? You bet. However, spools aren’t for everyone. If your vocabulary includes words such as car-like handling, low step-in height, and so on, then you don’t want a spool. But if you want cheap traction and are willing to put up with chirping tires, then Randy’s probably has a spool for you.