Toyota E locker install

[MasterYota]

Nothing picture worthy yet, but the E locker third has been successfully removed from the Tacoma rear axle housing and is patiently waiting in a bucket by the bench to get re-geared to 4.88, and then installed into my non E locker housing. Stay tuned for pictures and a write up...

[MasterYota]

Looks like I've had a brain fart, got the new gears awhile back, but I guess I forgot to order a new bearing kit to go with... duh....

[MasterYota]

Finished getting the E locker apart tonight. The actuator is fragged, nothing but rusted metal and dissolved aluminum in the electrical portion. Looks like I'm on the hunt for a new actuator, or a cable conversion.... The rest of the third member looks great though...

[MasterYota]

Well, the cable conversion is finished (my own design) and appears to work very well at moving the shift fork smoothly to activate the locker.  With any luck, I'll finish the gear setup today and then I can move onto the housing mods and get the diff installed into the non E locker housing.  Cap it all off with the cable locker shifter installed into the cab and then the truck will be road worthy again!

Pictures will be coming soon...

[MasterYota]

So the gear install has been a royal PIA but I got it figured out now. Turns out that the elocker and v6 share the same pinion bearings, the e locker housing needs additional shimming of the outer pinion bearing. That would have been handy information to have... I've been pulling my hair out trying to figure out why the pinion bearings will not develop any preload without shimming the pinion so far into the case that it hits the carrier. Problem solved now (whew....) Now its on to the final gear setup, and then some housing mods...

Maybe I'll be done before Christmas.....2015...lol

[MasterYota]

The gear setup is finished, finally; now on to the housing mods. Pics will follow sooner or later...

[MasterYota]

The empty housing is now on the bench awaiting the mods needed to install the Elocker. During disassembly I found proof that I did a really good job destroying the old gear set. Large chunks from seven of the nine teeth on the pinion were sitting in the bottom of the axle housing and about two-thirds of the teeth on the ring gear where chipped. The damage was catastrophic to say the least!

[MasterYota]

The mods are now finished and the rear end has been re-installed under the truck again! Took it for a test drive, and its smooth and quiet, which means I did a good job... Up next will be the installation of the cable actuator and the shifter as soon as my cable arrives...

[MasterYota]

Finally - here are some pictures!

The reason for the upgrade - here are 7 of the 9 teeth from the pinion gear in my old rear diff...


This started me on the road to an E Locker. This is what I found...

One rotted out and fragged actuator! Completely toast, and only worth about $1800.00 from Toyota...




Apparently I didn't take too many pictures of the new setup, but you'll get the idea from this pic here. The old actuator used a small geared wheel to move the shift fork back and forth to engage the locker (the wheel engaged the small teeth on the bottom of the fork). My new setup used a 14mm grade 10.9 steel bolt from the parts store to replace the shaft that the shift fork was pinned to. The bolt is 4 thou. smaller in diameter than the original shaft, and it worked perfectly. The small aluminum cap (held in the vice) was originally just a "pocket" bolted to the side of the third to allow for the movement and support of the shift-shaft. I drilled the end of the "pocket" open and allowed the bolt to extend through it. The bolt still rides on the factory machined surface for support both at the pocket and inside the diff. housing. The brass coupler pins on the end of the bolt and then threads onto the end of the control cable. The cable now moves the shaft side-to-side instead of the geared motor from the actuator. The shift fork is still pinned to the bolt like the oem setup. I did cut the head off the bolt...



I'll get a picture of the external cable housing and the shifter...

The new solid spacer vs. the OEM crush sleeve


This is the outer pinion bearing which gave me such a hard time. The factory bearing is on the left. The shorter bearing is what is included in all of Yukon's V6 rebuild kits. However, with the E locker kit, you also get an additional shim pack for that bearing. I was using just a regular V6 rebuild kit and didn't know about the additional shims. I ended up using a hardened 1" washer with the center hole dremelled open a further 10 thou. It worked just fine...


Next up was the housing mods, four new holes and big notch cut in one side to allow the shift fork to fit. I also had to pound out the small ridge in the pumpkin to allow the shift fork room to move.



The housing was too awkward to fit into my drill press; so to ensure that drilled the new holes perpendicular to bolt face, I simply marked a piece of angle iron with two lines slightly wider than the drill bit, and then clamped the piece to the housing. I then used the angle iron as a backstop to keep the drill bit vertical in one direction and keep the bit between the lines to keep it vertical in the other direction. Simple.



I hate putting gear oil in the diff, the filler is usually to small, and with the new armor to protect the E locker it would be almost impossible to get oil into the housing. Enter Trail Gears Rock Assault oil filler...
Marked...

One big hole!

All welded up - and super easy to dump oil in, and inspect the ring gear if I need too.


Trail Gears full armor went on pretty easy, but I did need to cut and re-weld it a little to get it to sit flush with the bottom of the diff.




These brackets are from TMR Customs and will support my new anti-wrap bar when I get it built. At $14.00 a pair, these brackets are too cheap to bother with building them myself. A little primer and the rear end was ready for paint...

[Gonesplorin]

Nice job ray.
I think my favourite part of this mod is that you now have a locker you can engage whenever you want, like in 2wd.

Nice welds too Ray.

Now go break it so you can rebuild it better!  


Brad

[MasterYota]

A shot of the anti-wrap bar, and the end of the cable housing...



Another angle. The small holes on either side of the cable stud is where the cable housing mount attaches to the diff. The anti-wrap brackets are from TMR.

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