Locker Install Overview

Some fellow Jeepers came over on March 28, 99 and helped me install my Lock Right Locker. This is a short overview of how the install went. The Installation manual was pretty clear, but I did hit two minor snags.

First block the front tires, put the transmission in neutral, raise the rear axle, and support it with jack stands. If you have the D35 with c-clips (like I do) you do not need to remove the rear tires. Have a drain pan and a lot of rags or news paper to spread on the floor.


Here's a shot of the locker. The two pieces that are second up from the bottom are the reason for one of the snags. More on that later.

The first snag came when we had to remove the Spider Gears shaft. It is retained by a bolt. This bolt is a 12 point 1/4". I didn't have the right socket. Also the passenger side cap had to be removed to access the retaining bolt. Cory made a run home and retrieved the needed tools.


This is a shot of the open differential after I removed the Diff cover.

This is a shot after we had removed the side and spider gears. The locker replaces these gears.

After that snag, things went well. We had no trouble removing the contents of the case.


This is a shot of the installed Locker.

The locker was going together fine until we came to the two pieces that I mentioned in the top photo. At this point we were almost done and new what we were doing :-). We had these to small washers/spacers left. We installed them like we figured theyed go and then we tryed to reinstall the spider gear shaft. Snag, the spider gear shaft would not go in. After wasting about 30 minutes trying to install the spider gear shaft with no luck, we resorted to the install manual. After a quick review we determined that the instructions never discussed these pieces. We took them out and the shaft slide right in. Next we put every thing back together. The bolts for the cap have to be torqued to 57lbs. Then I cleaned up the mating surface of the carrier and diff cover and used RTV and a gasket to reinstall the diff cover. Later that day we went for a test run and it worked great. In fact, it worked so great that it enabled me to get stuck in a spot that I would have never reached before:-).


Summary. This is an install you can do yourself. Insure that you read the install manual several times before you do the install, and have the tools in advance. It's nice to have a helping hand. Thanks to Cory, Eric, Paul, Jay, and the wife who allowed me to purchase the locker and trash our drive way installing it. I purchased the locker from Rusty's Offroad.

Locker impressions:

On road, Yes it clicks when you turn sharp, but it is not bad. You have to get use to not giving it to much gas in sharp turns. This can cause you to chirp a tire. If it's wet out be more causious. I purposely hit the gas on a right turn when the road was wet. The tail end kicked out and then yanked back inline. It is no problem on road as long as you drive appropriately.

Off road, It's great.

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