update time................................
quite an early start today, drove down to Rogers with the replacement diff.
Roger had picked up the new 50mm bearings to replace my smaller bearings, and had already pressed them onto the ARB locker.
after the new crown wheel had been cleaned and carefully inspected, we soaked it in boiling water for a few minutes.
after taking it out of the water and giving it a quick blast over with the air line, it fitted perfectly onto the locker.
we fitted the locker in place and worked out exactly where the tapped hole for the air line needed to be.
we removed the locker, and filled the diff with paper towel, and covered this in grease, this was to prevent swarf finding its way down inside the diff where the bearing is.
hole drilled.
and tapped.
we could then build the locker and diff back up and set the back lash and preload.
all done.
huge thanks to Roger for his help on this.
i could have sent it to Devon 4x4 to do it, but i doubt they would have been as thorough as Roger, and i doubt they would have spotted the crack in the crown wheel.
so i know the job has been done right, but more importantly ive learnt how its done, and next time i will have a go at doing it myself.
so just over an hour and i was home, and ready to start fitting it into the truck.
it felt very heavy with the locker built into it.
it really was a struggle lifting it up into place lying down under the truck, trying to carefully fit it into place without damaging/knocking the copper air line on the diff.
but i managed it.
then it started raining again.
this must be the 15th day in a row now where it has been raining!
but.................i wasnt going to let the weather stop me from doing what i wanted to do!
so out with a big tarp.
bolted the front prop, and steering damper back on, and connected the air line up.
shafts next.
the oil seal needed changing on the drivers side.
it took a bit of work to get the old one out.
shaft in.
had to add a few props under the tarp as the middle was filling with water and starting to droop down.
brake callipers back on.
free wheeling hubs on.
starting to get dark by this point.
squirted almost 2 litres of oil into the diff.
front wheels back on and tarp removed.
so finally after a 13hour day, the truck is back together and has a working front locker!
no chance to test drive it tonight, but im planning on taking it some where tomorrow night. theres a lane that i cant normally get up with out winching, will be interesting to see if i can now do it with front and rear lockers.
one thing i have noticed that im not very pleased about, is that the front locker wont function/work without the rear locker first being engaged.
so im going to have to work out how to modify the ARB wiring loom so that i can operate the front locker independently of the rear.
i just imagine there might be the very rare situation where being able to just lock the front axle might be beneficial. maybe trying to climb out of ruts, etc.
