Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Hi all,

Not sure if anybody out there will have dismantled an air locker.... I've finally got the front locker out of my old 80 so I can fit it into our 105.
I have dismanlted the diff and removed the ring gear. I was checking everthing out to see if I need to change any seals while it's apart, and found a few grooves in the seal assembly.

Explaination...


This is the part of the diff centre that takes the air into activate the locking mechanism, The top diameter is what is rubbing on the air ring.



You can see where the o-rings run which hasn't been damaged. But there is a fairly decent groove either side.

Closer shot




This is a ring that bolts in behind the bearing adjuster ring. As you can see it's a bit bent. It doesn't fit neatly with it's outer diameter so I think the seal assembly it sitting off square, causing the grooving.

I've downloaded the parts list for this locker and it shows a retaining clip instead of the ring and bolts.

Anybody else had any dramas like this? Is the an old retaining system? Should I just buy a new seal assembly ring?

Anybody????

seal housing has not been set up correctly, hence the rubbing. see if you can convert to the full floating design which is a much better setup. they should have run a feeler gauge all the way around so there is no rubbing....obviously they didn't.

joeblow wrote:seal housing has not been set up correctly, hence the rubbing. see if you can convert to the full floating design which is a much better setup. they should have run a feeler gauge all the way around so there is no rubbing....obviously they didn't.

I wonder if the ARB employee responsible was....................................................................................................
CHINESE!!!!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

nah...he just drove a big blue mav...hahahah....

ARB ARE F***ING USELESS TIME AND TIME AGAIN

end of rant

It was setup by a trusted 4wd mechanic. Looking closely it's more of a design fault. The bolt backing ring is very thin where the bolts go through and has no definite locking position. It's able to move around hence putting it off centre.

I'm looking at machining up a new bolting ring or swapping to a newer design. Not sure what will fix it. Will have a chat to my friendly ARB supplier.

money_killer wrote:ARB ARE F***ING USELESS TIME AND TIME AGAIN

end of rant

agree i had f&r lockers put in by them this year hope they are installed ok because the wiring and mounting of switches f##ked...only got them to put them in so the had a warranty....never will they touch my car... it was northern side of melbourne where the shop is...

drew4130 wrote:

money_killer wrote:ARB ARE F***ING USELESS TIME AND TIME AGAIN

end of rant

agree i had f&r lockers put in by them this year hope they are installed ok because the wiring and mounting of switches f##ked...only got them to put them in so the had a warranty....never will they touch my car... it was northern side of melbourne where the shop is...

yeh i mate of mine is having problems he spent 4500 on lockers front and rear, and 10500 all up on winch, bar etc. and rear locker was installed wrong and switchs wired wrong. tooo much back lash i think it was which caused it to shit it self after 112km and arb wont pay up so off to department of fair trading.

ARB in CABOOLTURE DO NOT GO THERE TRUST ME.

Don't know jack about the internals of these but bloody nice macro photography of the parts damage!

stampy4x4 wrote:Don't know jack about the internals of these but bloody nice macro photography of the parts damage!

Thanks, was one of the "must's" when we got our digital camera.

Anyone got anything constructive on the problem at hand..... I'm not here to bash ARB shops....

the seal housing was not sitting squarely on the seal spigot. You need to clearance the older ones, and often the stiff copper tube pushes the housing off centre. The other issue is when people do up the bearing retainer and leave burrs on the nut which causes the seal housing to not sit flat against the nut.

if you put that housing back on i can almost guarantee it will leak. If you can still get the seal housing from arb they are about $52 each, last time (about 12 months ago) i had to wait about 6 weeks for one to be made. you can convert to the full floating style by changing the spigot and the seal housing but it will cost you a couple of hundred.

i tried to machine the grooves out but then you have too much clearance on the o rings and they leak again. so see if you can dig up a new seal housing with the thin soft copper tube (stops the tube pushing the housing off centre and wearing like that) and setup the tubing like the new floating housings with some slack. and make sure the adjuster nut it ground flat so the seal housing can sit against it squarely. The housing retainer can be flattened out and re-used the holes are very close to the edge and for a weak point, lock tight the 4mm bolts and dont over tighten them.

if you change to a full floating housing throw the x rings (or quad rings) in the bin and replace with standard round profile viton o rings, the quad rings leak like a 50 year old tap washer..

arb air leaker.... traction when you need it.. any minute now.. hang on.....whats that diff oil smell? ......

it is 100% a fitting issue and not a machining issue. over the years in building custom diffs and vehicles in general i think i've fitted upwards of 40 airlockers ( in the last 5 years alone ) of both new and old style seal housings. i have had 2 to repair out of that bunch, one broke his piston- owners fault, and the other had a locking tab that was too long, thats it, all the others are still working as well as the day they were fitted, and these are on vehicles that are very heavily modified. maybe i'm just a fussy f#@k and set up diffs right, maybe i can actually read instructions, but at the end of the day get someone who is competent to work on it, that goes for things like engines too. and don't worry i've had alot of people bring thier diffs to me with some problems and i've been shocked at how they were fitted. just my thoughts and just my experiances.

joeblow wrote:it is 100% a fitting issue and not a machining issue. over the years in building custom diffs and vehicles in general i think i've fitted upwards of 40 airlockers ( in the last 5 years alone ) of both new and old style seal housings. i have had 2 to repair out of that bunch, one broke his piston- owners fault, and the other had a locking tab that was too long, thats it, all the others are still working as well as the day they were fitted, and these are on vehicles that are very heavily modified. maybe i'm just a fussy f#@k and set up diffs right, maybe i can actually read instructions, but at the end of the day get someone who is competent to work on it, that goes for things like engines too. and don't worry i've had alot of people bring thier diffs to me with some problems and i've been shocked at how they were fitted. just my thoughts and just my experiances.

if u get arb lockers fitted/installed at arb u would think they are competent.

money_killer wrote:

joeblow wrote:it is 100% a fitting issue and not a machining issue. over the years in building custom diffs and vehicles in general i think i've fitted upwards of 40 airlockers ( in the last 5 years alone ) of both new and old style seal housings. i have had 2 to repair out of that bunch, one broke his piston- owners fault, and the other had a locking tab that was too long, thats it, all the others are still working as well as the day they were fitted, and these are on vehicles that are very heavily modified. maybe i'm just a fussy f#@k and set up diffs right, maybe i can actually read instructions, but at the end of the day get someone who is competent to work on it, that goes for things like engines too. and don't worry i've had alot of people bring thier diffs to me with some problems and i've been shocked at how they were fitted. just my thoughts and just my experiances.

if u get arb lockers fitted/installed at arb u would think they are competent.

That seal housing hasn't been supplied with our RD64's for several years now, so if you ever use your vehicle hard at all then I would suggest that your diff is not set up too badly (given years of use), so it just might have worn the bearings and lost a little preload over the years.

If you have significantly up-sized your tyres and/or power output then I would be careful that you are not putting so much grunt through the system that you are slaying the bearing caps of the third member apart under load and therefore slightly disconnecting the right hand side (cylinder cap side) tapered roller bearing and allowing the journal to go inconcentric in the seal housing.

Either way the damage looks really light and since you didn't report having any problems with the diff then I would say you might even get away with just carefully polishing up your seal housing a bit with some very fine wet/dry paper. And make sure you re-preload it when you put it back in, rather than just re-setting the adjuster nuts to their previous position.

The guys are right in that changing your seal housing might cause delays as it is quite an old superseded model so we only make them to satisfy spare parts orders. And updating to the current self-centering type would require a new seal housing, retaining clip, cylinder cap, and O-rings.

-daniel
AIR LOCKER

All in all I don't think you have a problem as long as where the oring sits is still good and you can slide it over without damaging the oring it will seal.

I would replace the orings it's not worth putting old orings in.

Thanks for the info Daniel.

A little history. This locker was in the front of my part time 80 1HZ N/A. It got a bit of use but not lots.

I sold my old car to a mate after it sat around for a year or so. I plan on fitting this centre to our 105. It has an aftermarket turbo and intercooler on it, but not heaps of grunt. It won't get a lot of use offroad but the 105 is constant 4wd, so keeping it in good order is a must.

Current cash flow issues will probably mean I'll just clean up the parts I've got, but I'll check with my local ARB shop for prices etc.

Thanks again
Dave