[[email protected]]

Thoughts on E-locker broken spider side gear(s)

my sad story:

For the last 8 years my only locker has been a welder. now that i use me truck on the highway in the winter i like having an open rear diff. open diff is useless in the bush and i can not afford an ARB. bought a mint Elocker with new installed 5.29s ($350 + a 92 4cyl Tcase). did some reading notched the axle, drilled and tapped new holes, installed. first trail run i was on a steep power line road, diff locked, 2wd, high range, 1st gear, 22re, 33" tires. at the crest of the hill the passenger side spider gear broke. getting home on the highway sucked! i was not really abusing my truck when it broke!!

here is the damage. broken gear and mangled inner axle shaft.

did some more reading to find that the rear axle shafts from a 86-95 dont engage all the way on the spider gear of the E locker. looks like my shaft (RH side) was about 4-5mm shy of fully engaging the gear. i read people say there are hopping on rock with out braking theirs. another person saying theirs broke on the road. i hear coil sprung 4runner rear axles are about 7mm longer and can help or stop the problem. this is cheap and will solve my lack of engagement problem.

questions:
-does a V6 RH spider gear fit in a toy e-locker???????????? has any one tried it?
-has any one with full gear / axle engagement broken anything in there elocker (other then R+P)?
-does a stock tacoma rear axle have full engagement into the side gears of its stock elocker?
-are tacoma axles weak or is that just a rumor?

some links i was reading to get this info:
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=806250
http://www.tacomaterritory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=83964&highlight=elocker+shafts
and another on i cant find the link to now

thank you for any help

this is how sad my truck looks right now.................

 

[[email protected]]

in the first picture the part of the splines that are gone was 1/2 in the "gear part". when the "sleeve part" broke off the remeaning 5mm of spline in the gear was not enough and sheered off.

 

[bigmudder]

yea you need to narrow your rear axle to solve the problem or find longer axle shafts

 

[88that guy90]

my buddy did this same thing in his 88 with a 3.0 and 35's we replaced it and he hasnt had any problems since..

could have it possibly been cracked before?

 

[[email protected]]

does any one know if the V6 3rd member side gear will fit into the E locker?

or does any one know where i can get a passenger side gear affordable?

it might have been cracked before but i dont think so. i inspected it fairly well before i bought it. did not take the spider gear carrier apart though........

 

[JACKED944RUNNER]

I belive as to longer shafts you use 90-95 4runner shafts with the coil rear end because they are slightly longer. If you search there is a thread around here about that.

 

[FuzzyZ]

yea almost looks like you were using the shorter non-ifs rear shafts in an IFS rear width houseing. with that little amount of splines engaged no wonder it stripped!

 

[LAILEY]

yea almost looks like you were using the shorter non-ifs rear shafts in an IFS rear width houseing. with that little amount of splines engaged no wonder it stripped!

4cyl shafts are 1.5" shorter, they wouldnt engage at all. plus they are not the same size (splines differ). good try though

 

[FuzzyZ]

4cyl shafts are 1.5" shorter, they wouldnt engage at all. plus they are not the same size (splines differ). good try though

Umm. Yea only differance is lenght splines are the same. And i sure as heck hope you had more spline engagement than that if those were the correct shafts for that houseing.

 

[bigmudder]

If you search a member named nashman he had the same issue others have as well the shafts are just a bit too short you will continue to break it I belive the rear coil diffs have a touch longer axle. v6 side gear will fit fine.

 

[Ghetto Fab.]

trkklr77 nailed it.

I'm not sure if more spline engagement would fix it. Maybe, but there is a huge stress concentration on the that side gear where it necks down to go into the carrier. Obviously you can have too little and be just engaging the portion of the sidegear where it necks down. Even if you had full engagement though I'm not sure there is enough in the non-necked down portion to keep it from breaking and then stripping the splines off the end.

There was a thread a while ago that mentioned marlin was working on a fix but I have never seen anything come of it. It would be interesting to see if we could bore out the carrier where the side gear goes and make a bigger side gear.

I really do like my e-locker though!

Kevo

 

[86jeff22r]

yep, its broke alright:flipoff2:

 

[Hvy_Chevy]

I just did the exact same thing with mine (welded not e-locker)
There is plenty of length, since that stripped part is into the gear itself.

Mine broke since the 3rd came out of a bent housing, caused side stress on the gear and eventually broke it.

 

[2manyprojects]

Umm. Yea only differance is lenght splines are the same. And i sure as heck hope you had more spline engagement than that if those were the correct shafts for that houseing.

I'm not sure you're understanding the picture. The coller on the axle use to be one with the side gear. The internal spline is on both pieces that use to be one. There is very little extra spline engagement to be had, talking a few mm's here.

 

[bigmudder]

I just did the exact same thing with mine (welded not e-locker)
There is plenty of length, since that stripped part is into the gear itself.

Mine broke since the 3rd came out of a bent housing, caused side stress on the gear and eventually broke it.

that normally happens with a bent housing

 

[[email protected]]

thx for your replies! this has helped me big time!

i fairly sure my housing is not bent! but i will check it out thoroughly when i get home.

my plan is to replace the side gear with with a V6 and replace the shafts with coil shafts. i will also not be locking it in 2wd just to be safe. i was very very happy with it till it broke....

a few questions:

-has any one with full gear / axle engagement broken anything in there elocker (other then R+P)?
-does a stock tacoma rear axle have full engagement into the side gears of its stock elocker?
-are tacoma axles weak or is that just a rumor?

thx again

 

[Hvy_Chevy]

maybe - the axle it came out of was bent

 

[[email protected]]

my shop partner said they do that and that they are just a piece of shit. bent housing or not.

that was a great post...........thx........

 

[GTA3wheeler]

Tacoma Axles and 3rd gen 4runner axles are weaker. I don't know if they will work in 86-95 housing and I wouldn't try it because they are weaker.

E lockers have too many problems, especially when used in the rear. The motors go out also. Someone sells a chromo side gear I think that would help your problem though.

 

[billybob13]

if you're looking for a v-6 side gear, shoot me a pm. i'll give you one if you pay shipping. i'll see if it fits a small flat rate box, if not ups should be about $5.