http://bb.bc4x4.com/showthread.php?t=128820
Aussie locker review
Why I wanted a locker
I installed an Aussie Locker a while ago in the rear axle of my 1990 4Runner. I have an 22RE and a 5 spd manual. I run 31x10.5R15 Nokian Vativa ATs. My other mods include set of OME coil springs a shocks. I don't rock crawl or wheel anything too crazy. Mostly I wanted a rig that would get me to and from fishing spots down back roads (or no road) safely all year in almost any condition. On road performance, is important to me as I had an collision earlier this year which came pretty damn close to breaking my spinal cord and did rupture a disc. I'm told that another accident would be very bad. I do a lot of city driving unfortunately and I didn't want anything obtrusive either. An ARB locker was out of my price range.
Why I chose an Aussie Locker
I had driven a Lock Right and it wasn't too bad, but it was had determine what the effect would be on my truck as the truck with the Lock Right was already pretty noticeably modified (ie: 33x12.5 MTs, no sway bars and loud exhaust).
After a few dozen hours (or maybe more) I decided I'd buy an Aussie Locker as It appeared to be the best product on the market. Also, I had heard nothing but good things about Torq Master[<--that's a link]- the company that makes them. I really haven't read anything bad about them from anyone who owns an Aussie. That's pretty remarkable, seeing how critical 4wd owners can be. Throughout the ordering process, Bill Cole- the owner, was very helpful. I had wondered about the nuisance on road steering and he assured me that it was not as big a deal as it is made out to be on the internet and the Aussie Locker was much smoother than the competition. I'll expand on this later, but suffice it to say, he wasn't exaggerating in the least.
The order and the shipping worked out to be about $275 Canadian (same value as the USD now). The locker arrived about ten days later, even though I had ordered it the day before the Easter weekend. The first thing I noticed was that the box was much smaller than I expected. It didn't look that much different than a box of chocolate. I was also surprised how much the box weighed. When I first opened the box, I was astounded how simple it looked. I had seen pictures on the internet, it looked so simple sitting on the table in front of me. I have to admit, I was a little worried that I'd wasted my money and that this thing could never perform as well as was rumoured. As it turns out, it did and everything on the website promoting the locker's smoothness was true.
The install
I installed it a few days later and the install didn't go as smooth as hoped. Replacing the spider gear with the locker was easy, but putting the carrier back into the third member housing wasn't IMHO. About 6" of slush fell (along with a whole lot of rain) while I was removing the third member (differential housing) and I had take apart the diff in the open without much light as it was not allowed inside by my mother. Gear oil smells like flatulence and brake cleaner smells like raw, unadulterated carcinogen, at least to my mother. I ended up doing most of the work in the dark with a headlamp with a piece of poly (think heavy cling wrap) draped over the third member. Furthermore, I had a tire-marking pen to mark bits of the diff with and that just plain didn't work. In the end, I couldn't get the bearing adjuster caps back on right and I messed up the backlash. I had to take it to a shop (Krangle Automotive in North Vancouver) to adjust the backlash. They were very good and only charged me $80 and repainted the diff while they were at it. Once I had the third member put together properly, I detached the swaybar endlinks to get the third back into the axle housing (the SB was in the way) and then filled it up with cheap 80W90 gear oil for the break-in period (500mi). Bleeding the brakes isn’t hard to do by yourself if you have a beer/ pop bottle, some clear tubing and about 500mL of brake fluid.
I won't go into any more detail on the install but if I had a proper workbench the know-how to install those bearing caps would have made a lot of difference. It still would have taken maybe a Saturday, with breaks and beer.
The truck is jacked up and the gear oil drained. Makes sure to chock the front wheels.
Removing the parking brake cable. The axle shafts were removed entirely as opposed to pulling them out a bit.
I tied the driveshaft up during the install. I forgot to remove it when I was finished. It made a strumming sound during the test drive that made me certain the install had gone horribly wrong.
The axle shaft is out of the way. Often people replace the axle seal here, however I didn't have one so I didn't. It does not leak.
I used a chisel to separate the driveshaft from the third member.
Brake cleaner to remove gear oil from the third member.
Marking and removing bearing caps. I could not put them back in properly so I took them to Krangle Automotive in North Van at the East end of Esplanade.
Here is the third with the Aussie Locker. I had to file down the case about 1 mm to fit the locker in, but otherwise its very easy.
First impressions
I pulled it out of the driveway and turned uphill. The inside tire gave a bit of chirp. I then drove about 10km (6mi) around the neighborhood, up and around some steep hill and tight uphill corners. It didn’t really make that much difference, it certainly wasn’t difficult to drive. I then drove around in a crescent at full lock around and around until it started bucking. Not your everyday driving maneuver, really. One thing I did notice is that high RPM downshifting into a tight corner will often cause the lurching or bucking, but it is easy to adapt to this.
Offroad
This is why I bought it. Like everyone says, its like you’re in 4wd when you’re actually in 2wd. With the limited travel of my basically stock suspension, I was often lifting a tire, stopping me even when I had plenty of traction. I would say that it’s perhaps even more of a difference than shifting from 2wd to 4wd. It feels pretty unstoppable now, especially in uneven terrain (ie: going across a ditch) even with my basically street tires. It is pretty neat to feel the tires claw for traction even though you’ve lifted a tire or two. There plenty of info about the effect of locker rear axel already online, so have a look.
On road, after a couple weeks of wet, snowy miserable weather and city driving.
Yesterday I drove all the way across Vancouver in rush hour. Stop and go, all the way. I didn’t hear the locker once, and I only felt it once, honest. Remember, I’m not driving a lifted SAS beast on 35 mud terrains with some V8 shoehorned into the engine bay. My last cars were 2000 Corolla and a Volkswagen Eurovan. Pretty tame. As long as you don’t engine brake around corners at high (3500rpm) or low (1000rpm) engine speeds, then it doesn’t lurch. The lurching feels like when you were just learning to drive a standard and you were in too low a gear. I can put my foot down around just about any corner and nothing happens. The outer wheel just silently and unnoticeably free wheels. None of the drama that people often talking about. The exception to this would be if for some reason the inside wheel had significantly less traction. Then obviously it would chirp. That is what it is suppose to do, continue providing torque to one wheel when the other slips. In fact, going around a corner in the rain feels more stable than before because my inside tire doesn’t spin.
I had the opportunity to test the locker out on a snowy mountain road yesterday with about an inch of snow over ice. In 2WD the back end comes loose without too much difficulty but is pretty easy to control. It doesn’t just “whip out on you” just you feel the tires break loose, and you start to slowly start to turn. Back of the gas and the tires grab again. I went for a couple hundred meters with the back end spinning just to learn to deal with the truck fishtailing. It isn’t difficult and isn’t even necessary as in any condition in which you might break traction, you could easily have in 4WD, and should have done so a ways back. Once I put it in 4WD, the truck felt really planted. At no time did I feel unsafe. I felt more planted in 4wd with the rear locked, than it did open one slippery roads.
One comment I have read is that "a mechanical locker will cause the vehicle to pull to one side under acceleration". I have not found this to be true. I have never noticed this quirk.
I’ve driven with a number of people in the car- and none of them noticed the locker. I would feel as safe driving anywhere in any condition driving the truck with a locker as with an open differential. For the off road benefits, I wouldn’t give it up. I don’t even think that I’d be too keen to trade it for an ARB. A rear ARB is now at the bottom of my list of modifications I feel is necessary to build a road worthy daily driver that is capable off road.
The noise
Not much to write about here. It clicks at low speeds in parking lots. You have to be in a covered parking lot with lots of echoes with the windows open to really notice. Above 10km/h (5mph) it’s silent. I am using 80W90 now and I was going to go with a heavier oil once it breaks in, but now I don’t think I will need to. Originally, I was planning on using Redline Heavy Shockproof gear oil, but now I think I will put the Lightweight oil in instead. I feel that will almost certainly silence the locker to a point where it is not audible to the human ear. By comparison, my valves are noisier than my locker and they are set to the factory specs. EDIT: I was wrong about the effectiveness in noise reduction of Shockproof. It probably does protect the gears really well, but its noisier than before. It does not seem as smooth either, though that could be that its noisy so I assume its the oil when it does lurch...placebo effect type thing. I will be stepping up to a 85W140 which is what the noisier Lock Right manual recommends. Aussie only calls for 80W90 which was fine, but maybe thick will protect better and render the locker completely silent.
I can hear the locker racheting when I'm coasting around a 90 turn to make it into a parking stall. I have to be listening for it though. Couldn't hear it if the radio was on (at the volume I listen to the news).
Much of the noise disappeared in the first week- I assume it’s mostly broken in now as it is seldom I hear it at all.
The quirks
There are a few minor and livable quirks. That may or may not be related to the locker. I broke my sway bar at the same time as the install so that may be the cause of some or most of the quirks. EDIT: It does it still with the swaybar back on.
First, when you step on the gas in a straight line, the drivers side of the truck seems to rise as if you were going over a speed bump. You do not feel this at all, but you can tell by looking over the hood. It doesn’t bother me and no one else has noticed, but interesting nonetheless. This is probably the missing swaybar.
Second when you floor it going around a corner on a gravel road, the ride worsens a bit. I think this is because the different wheels are providing the traction second by second. Its not noticeable unless you floor the engine and gas around the corner at a dangerous pace, that’s to say, it wouldn’t be a problem if your father was in the car because the would have told you off at 2/3rds of that speed.
Third there is that lurching around the corner I mentioned earlier about engine breaking around a corner at the wrong RPM. Adjust your driving a bit and this isn’t a problem.
If you try hard in a parkade (the ones with the oil resistant paint on the ground that makes your tires squeak when turning even with open diffs), once in a while you can get the locker to bang. It sounds a bit like you drove over a manhole cover, not the landmine people over suggest it sounds like. It has banged at me once in my entire time owning the locker, it got me a funny look someone getting into the car next to me.
That’s about it.
My theory why the Aussie works well in my 4Runner
I think it works well in a 4Runner, because it’s a low horsepower heavy vehicle with a decent wheelbase. My 22RE doesn’t have the horsepower to break traction of both tires on wet pavement most of the time. When it does, it’s usually only momentary before the wheels find grip again. I have AT tires that give me good rain traction. I’m also a semi conservative driver, enough to get me 16mpg in the city (4cyl, 5spd).
Here are my vehicle's specs
Engine: 116hp from the factory.
Transmission: 5spd
Weight: ~ 4000lbs
Lift: leveled rear, no front lift
Tires: Nokian Vativa 31x10.5-15
4wd: part time, open front diff, stock t-case
Final thoughts
I questioned whether a lunchbox locker would be appropriate for daily driver. As it turns out, it was. The Aussie Locker is a very well designed product that takes the simple concept of a auto locker and perfects it to a nearly silent and very road worthy level. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend an Aussie Locker to any of my friends.
UPDATE 10/05/08
I changed the gear oil to Redline Heavy Shockproof (75W90 with film strength of 250w oil). Oddly, it makes more sound than it did with the cheap 80W90 oil I had in there for the brake-in period. I don't mind the noise, and no one riding in the truck with me has ever asked about it, but then again I am almost certain they have heard it.
I tried the locker on patchy snow on a FSR. I performed great. The traction gain is remarkable. It felt more solid than before and tracked straiter with the locker in the back.
I had yet to have a situation where the locker was "dangerous".
Call me BCDelica-less
