I picked up a front diff with 4.88 gears and a LockRight for $200. The claim was that the gears were new with the locker which was installed about 15k miles ago (total). The long shaft has a leak so I pulled the thing apart enough to get the shafts out and pop out the oil seals.

I found a whole bunch of this stuff (2mm diameter coils) inside when I removed the shafts:



All the pieces laid out flat, its about the size of a quarter. I have neither installed a lockright myself nor seen the parts so I have no idea what they could be. Any idea what/where the metal debris is from?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

those look like they are the spring that go at the ends of the pins inside the locker. they are quite necessary for the locker to work. but not in that condition.

 

yup...those be the springs from the lockright...should probably buy replacement springs and pins.

 

Might as well post up pics of the rest of the diff.
Either somebody jacked up the set up or something broke.

 

Will do tonight, but everything else looks great and is still intact.

I cant believe this is it for parts (from a Lock Right build up thread), but I get it now with "pins and springs":



Gears look good and they do not seem to be original with an engraving ("signature") on the side of the ring gear from the installer.

Tough decision - try and work over the seller to get my money back or keep it / fix it / install it. For the price, I am still thinking the latter. I've done the whole build-up myself so far, but I dont have the right tools/knowledge for setting backlash, etc. so I may be off th visit ZUK locally.

Have to get the currently unlocked front diff off my 4Runner tonight I guess.

Heh - I guess I should have started a build-up thread...

 

Hold up!!!

You guys are way off track on this one.

Keywords:

"The long shaft has a leak"

"2mm diameter coils"

"All the pieces laid out flat, its about the size of a quarter"

What do those things tell me? That pic is of the spring that holds the sealing lip of the axleshaft seal firmly to the axleshaft. It's quite obvious to me as I've seen them dozens of times. And that's EXACTLY what they look like. Not only that, but if it were so, that's what would have been causing the seal to leak too.

So if you still have trouble believing me, check the seal. You will find that the coil spring I'm speaking of is missing from it. And if that's still not registering, go buy a new seal for it. Then compare it to the old one. Notice the coil spring on the inside of the sealing lip on the new one?

Major fail you guys. Definitely NOT parts from a LockRight locker!

 

Yep, these pieces are tiny.

 

crap--never even thought about the spring in the seal..guess that is what I get for trying to think during Zombie (1:36AM) hours
Nice Mudhippy

 

you know, I had a hunch about that, but I wasn't sure if that picture you took was that close up or not

it would have been easier if you just put a quarter next to it for size reference

 

Wow.

Even though I don't have the parts in front of me that is definitely it. I have replaced these seals before on my current front diff with the springs in place and didn't have the experience to think of those as the culprit. The pieces to the puzzle were all there (as MudHippy laid out) and I missed it...Damn.

Good news is that I eventually would have figured it out after a bunch of wtf's? because I downloaded the Lock Right installation instructions. In there it states that the backlash and bearing preload do not have to be reset. This means that I would have tackled it myself and hopefully figured out that the springs in the pins are way bigger than the 2mm.

Regardless, I appreciate all the input and the right answer.

MudHippy - if you are ever in Phoenix the first beer is on me

Bob

 

yep, definitely the spring from the seal and not from the lockrite. the lockrite's springs are fairly short and stiff - about 1/4" in diameter.

 

Right on the money.. No way that there are that many springs in the lock right. And they'd be too small. Bad seal because of bad springs.

 

Confirmed tonight. Its the seal spring.