sgtskid

Okay, I have several people pming me about issues I have had with my locker and what the outcome finally was. I didn't want to post anything until everything was settled and the results in.

Just a quick recap: I have 98 Cherokee with 6.5 LA and 4.56 gears. I installed an Aussie locker in the back of it and almost immediately started having problems with it. Many iterations later and another locker I was still having problems. Aussie and I went back and forth between installation methods, tolerances, etc. and nothing seemed to help. They went above and beyond in the customer service department and I was often on the phone with either the president (Bill) or Ty (tech) late in the afternoons on weekends. We tried so many different things it wasn't even funny. After many many MANY discussions with Aussie and their tech staff they eventually decided to give me a full refund plus a little for my troubles. The problems I was having where that it radomly popped and ratcheted causing my jeep to pull hard right each and every time. Both lockers eventually broke, each on a moderate trail and each with one wheel in the air and one wheel on the ground (exactly what a locker was designed for). Either way, as I mentioned before I tried many different things and nothing helped resulting in a refund. As requested by Aussie I sent back both lockers and the carrier center pin. Aussie then sent the parts out to an independent third party for analysis. The results and my response are as follows:

We promised to share the consultants findings with you. Here is his report:

Hi Bill–I looked over the 8.25 lockers that you sent. I presume that both of them came from Mr. Mohammed. He included the pinion shaft that he ground on a belt sander, which was fortunate, because this aspect of the problem was caused by the grinding. He ground into the area where it contacts the recesses in the cam gear. It wasn’t much, but it did affect the camming force. He ground the shaft parallel to the pinion shaft retaining hole, whereas the better (only?) option is across the retaining hole. (This was done to allow the pinion shaft to be pulled out past the ring gear.) The other solutions are to (1) pull the diff case out of the vehicle and disassemble it to install the locker, or (2) grind enough off of a ring gear tooth to allow an unaltered shaft to clear. If he puts a new un-ground shaft in, it probably would work. It is interesting to note that only one side was slipping, which appears to be the one where the grinding was slightly more that the other side of the grind (the ground flat wasn't exactly at 90° from the pinion shaft pin hole).

As soon as we saw the pinion shaft we felt that this was the cause, but we wanted to get an independent evaluation and we did not share our suspicions with the consultant.

The lockers did not fail due to any defect in material or workmanship. Rather they failed because of the modification to the pinion shaft which is outside of the warranty.

Regards

Bill


Bill,


Thank you for including me in on the findings. The first center pin I used was ground inline with the retaining bolt holes. This was throwing the side tolerances off. I removed as much of the tooth of the gear as I felt comfortable removing and took the minimal amount from the center pin. After talking with Ty he said that if I had to remove some material from the pin it would be best to do it 90 degrees from the retaining hole. It is unfortunate that none of the instructions, received with either the gears or the locker, state how to deal with installing the center pin with larger after market gears. If I may make a recommendation to put a disclaimer in the instructions about this modification and its affects on the performance of the locker. I appreciate Torq Masters working with me on this. I will be looking for a locker for the D30 in the front of my Jeep very soon and will not hesitate to try Aussie again.

Thanks,
Shaan Mohammed


The lesson: When installing larger gears and a locker....don't shave the center pin. Shave a tooth of the gear. I just wish there was something listed in the instructions somewhere that mentioned this. Hours of searching online said to take some off the tooth and some off the pin, but none of them mentioned what would happen with a locker . In summary Aussie and Torq Master did more than they ever had to to make things work out and even in the end when it turned out to be my fault they shared the results with me. So, in my book, they get two thumbs up.

TrekkerJmm

Try a "PowerTrax" no-spin. They are similar to Aussie but built a little better IMHO. What was the problems you were having...Tj

JeepingDan

Thats good to hear. Thanks for sharing a good experience.

sgtskid

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