Ok i was looking through one of those :rainbow: 4x4 rags and it had a artical about the new dodge ram COMBATT trucks for the army. they said they have dana hydro-lock diffs and a dana central tire inflation system in the axle assemblys. so my question is can we get this stuff from dana? and how are they doing it?

As on of the Army's mechanics that has to work on (Read: Put up with) ingenious ideas the DA had like CTIS I can tell you one thing - - You sure as hell don't want whatever system they're using. I've never seen one that worked correctly in almost 4 years. I've actually been in vehicles that the CTIS let all the air of the tires. Doesn't sound bad except this was rolling in a loaded deuce and a half on the interstate. It has all kinds of weird quirks that you never really seem to work correctly. You never know what it will do. One of the first things we do when we get a new rig is unhook the power to the system so that it can't do that stuff. It's almost as bad the black box in the Hummvees. One other thing, is that it adds about a 10 lb weight to one side of your wheel, which is gonna be really fun to balance. We just don't bother. I'm not meaning to jump on ya, it's a great theory. It's just that we haven't yet made the system work correctly. Ever >8-) One other thing - they did away with the Dodges, as of 2 months ago it's gonna be F250s

I think it is the system from Syegon (French) as they are placing the units on some light duty dana axles along with some OshKosh and Hemmits.

I saw a pic of one of the test vehicles. I was wondering what kind of wheel they use. It looked like a two piece like a hummer wheel. Anyone know?

This question is not a new one. The COMBATT (COMmercially BAsed Tactical Truck) was an idea that was posed to each of the Big Three manufacturers and they were supposed to come up with all sorts of bells and whistles. As far as I am aware, no you can't get the CTIS system from Dana and, if you could, you would just about double the cost of Camo's axle. Plus, you would get sick and tired of cleaning the axle lube out of the inside of your tires. The difficulty comes in trying to pass the air pressure from the stationary axle housing to the rotating wheel. The systems on the COMBATT trucks do it in the hubs where you have bearing grease and axle lube that can easily contaminate the air when (NOT IF) the seals fail. The Syegon controller isn't all that cheap either and Syegon only builds the controllers. However, this isn't to say that some of the people on this board couldn't do it. I have seen some pretty impressive tech where, if applied to the problem of CTIS, could come up with a solution.

As far as the wheels are concerned, they are manufactured by Hutchinson which is the same company that makes the majority of the two-piece bead lock wheels including the hummer wheels. The difference is that these wheels are machined aluminum and run about $2500 each. They are 17 x 8.5s and have a somewhat normal back spacing unlike the hummer wheels. I have been wishing that Hutchinson would get off their asses and offer two-piece beadlock wheels to the public. Then we wouldn't be getting harassed by the local constabulary.

Sorry about the book!

Tom

I have been wishing that Hutchinson would get off their asses and offer two-piece beadlock wheels to the public. Then we wouldn't be getting harassed by the local constabulary. Hutchinson does offer custom wheels to the public, it is just going to cost you $400.00+ a wheel.