Rear diff lock actuator

[Chris]

Awesome! No stopping you now Matey!

C

 

[Gav Peter]

Can you take some pics of the actuator replace

Willdo my best buddy

Where are they then

Uh oh...

I took a few of the morning decimation at the weekend:

The scene of the crime... Nice new creeper

Yuk - guard removed...

Bling bling...

Urghh

But it was so wet & cold in the afternoon, I didn't take any more. I ended up with a hole ridden blue tarp rigged up between the truck & me caravan, rolling around in the muck & gunk & screwing the bolt up...

The bolt...

I was so focussed on not failing again last night, I'm afraid I didn't even think about pics - sorry...

It was a bit of a worry when the lock didn't go in last night but I remembered the gloopy oil theory... All good now though

Awesome! No stopping you now Matey!

Yeah, cheers lah. Well chuffed. Looking forwards to trying it out next weekend

Cheers

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

Your old one doesn't look too bad Gav, might be life and therefore some £'s in that yet

 

[Chris]

It does look more tinker-able than a front locker, Jon. I agree. Drop it in a bucket of diesel for a week. Or Cola!!!

Chris

 

[Gav Peter]

Aye, its not as corroded as I thought it was going to be...

I shall have a play with it & see what happens - cola you say? Diet, sugar-free??

 

[Brett]

Mmm, mine isn't working either but visually looks in better nick than your old one Gav.

You can here mine whirring away trying to lock but it never does, the front locks up ok though.

Is it possible to access the locking pin whilst the actuator is still in situ, I wonder if mine is stuck?

Oh, yeah, how much is a new actuator Gav?

 

[Gav Peter]

Mine didn't make any noise at all Brett - dead as a Dodo!!! If your's is whirring, you can't be far off it working...

You can get to the locking pin with the actuator in place. If you look on the second pic, you can see (well, almost...) the plate with the switch in, just by the two studs... If you remove the switch & then take off the 3 bolts holding the plate on, you can get access to the actuator pin. You could probably leave the switch in if required...

If you are removing the actuator, you need to get here to unbolt the pin from the locking arm - thats the bolt that I made a mess off... And I have a spare now too if anyone else ever messes up like I did

They ain't cheap - I got mine from Mr Rubie quite a while back. I had to dust it off before fitting it I've had it that long Probably worth dropping him a line for an up-to-date price...

 

[Brett]

You can get to the locking pin with the actuator in place. If you look on the second pic, you can see (well, almost...) the plate with the switch in, just by the two studs... If you remove the switch & then take off the 3 bolts holding the plate on, you can get access to the actuator pin. You could probably leave the switch in if required...

Do you mean the circular plate on the front Gav?

 

[Gav Peter]

The circular plate is part of the actuator Brett - the cover plate is a bit tricky to spot with all the muck under there... Let me see if I can put some lines on the photo... Be right back...

 

[Gav Peter]

Okee dokes, see if this assists:

I've tried to outline the cover plate in red & the switch in blue - you can hardly make out the parts with all the crud on them...

 

[Brett]

Ok, I'm with you now

So, if I remove that cover plate I should be able to hopefully spray some lube in there & hopefully manipulate the pin into moving again.?

Thanks for the photos & the redline markup Gav.

 

[Gav Peter]

No probs Brett

You will certainly get a view as to whats going on in there for a few minutes work. Whether you can effect any remedial action is another question - its quite a small hole!!!

If you remove the switch from the cover plate, there's supposed to be a gasket that is replaced but I didn't read that in the FSM til I'd had it in bits so mines gone back in without one for now... I might just give it a rub over with a bit of sealant

Let us know how you get on - flingers clossed for a nice cheap & easy fix

Cheers

 

[frank rabbets]

Yes
Degrease and silicone. I even use silicone on exhaust manifolds. It takes a very high temperature to destroy it.

Frank

 

[Rob]

Ok, I'm with you now

So, if I remove that cover plate I should be able to hopefully spray some lube in there & hopefully manipulate the pin into moving again.?

Thanks for the photos & the redline markup Gav.

You could try spraying WD40 down the breather pipe, this usually gets sticky actuators going again.

 

[Brett]

You could try spraying WD40 down the breather pipe, this usually gets sticky actuators going again.

I'll give it a try, cheers Rob.

 

[Gav Peter]

I'll be fairly miffed if my old one sparks into life with a spray of WD40 having lashed out on a new un...

Still working last night btw if a little slowly... Maybe more periodic usage now its working will loosen it up a wee bit...

 

[Brett]

I think the rear locker does take longer to engage than the front

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

The rear locker has quite course teeth on the locking dog so there needs to be quite a bit of differential rotation i.e. wheels going at different speeds for it to drop into place. The front has quite a fine pattern so needs very little difference to align.

 

[Gav Peter]

Thanks for that intel chaps - much happier now

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

An uncommon but not unheard of problem is twisted rear drive shafts - when abused, the splines can become twisted making it hard for the locking collar to slide along them and in bad cases making it hard to impossible to remove the drive shaft to fix it. I don't personaly know anyone who has had this problem though, yet Rear lockers are notoriously slow to engage though so I wouldn't panick