Elocker/ Air Locker Wiring Mystery (Help) (1 Viewer)

[Sloth Cruiser]

I need the collective minds of MUD to help me out. First a quick back story: I'm the 3rd owner of my 98 LC. It has a factory rear elocker (yes it's there..) and according to the second owner an ARB installed in the front with ARB CKSA12 compressor. When I bought it I knew the lockers weren't working like they should. The PO never wheeled the truck, but indicated that he thought the ARB + compressor were installed by SLEE. Truck is originally from CO. The factory elocker and ARB were big reasons I bought the truck. Obviously for the added expo/overlund points front and rear lockers bring.

Finally had a little time to look into it after taking care of a bunch of other maintenance. The truck has an 80 series locker switch with Rear and Front/Rear positions. When in 4lo/ CDL engaged and the rear locker position is selected the compressor kicks on and the rear elocker dash indicator blinks. The rear locker does not engage, nor do I hear the relay clicking similar to when the CDL relay activates. No matter how long the switch is in the rear position does the rear locker engage, or the compressor turn off. Rotating the switch to the Front/ Rear Position yields the same result as above along with the front locker not engaging.

Before someone asks, yes I know how it should work.... i've had multiple factory locked toyota 4x4's. Before pulling the elocker to see if it was gummed up at all I decided to pull the steering wheel surround trim to have a look at the wiring to the switch itself. The wires that are pinned into the switch are White, Red-Blue, and Green-Red

Rear of switch:

The harness from the compressor was zip tied/ taped up around the switch harness. First thing I noticed was the white wire is cut, leaving it not connected to anything on the vehicle harness side.

 

[Sloth Cruiser]

Here's everything all bundled up. The thick red, yellow, green, and black wires are from the compressor harness. The green and black wires from the compressor are not hooked up to anything. This i believe is correct, see wiring diagram below. Those are for a second air locker solenoid.

When unwrapped here's what it looks like. Red wire from compressor is soldered to factory green-red wire. Factory Red-Blue wire remains intact.

Yellow wire from compressor is attached to factory white wire on the switch pigtail side (again leaving factory white wire on vehicle harness side exposed/ not attached to anything).

 

[Sloth Cruiser]

Now lets look under the hood....:
Excuse the grease, truck had a valve cover leak that I just fixed. Haven't got around to de-greasing, because free rust proofing....
On the compressor side everything looks good. Hard to tell but yellow/black connect to the solenoid as they should. Dark green black pigtail that should be for 2nd air locker switch is not attached to anything. What I do notice is that the solenoid is in the rear position, which according to the compressor wiring diagram should be the second air locker. Should this be moved to the front position? I don't think it should matter since the correct yellow/ black wires are connected to the solenoid.

I think everything is fine on the engine bay side.

So really what i'm asking is: are the connections behind the switch correct? I've looked at the EWD's but quite honestly it's all sparks and magic to me. I'm a professional engineer by trade, and took a handful of electronics classes back in college; but i loathe wiring and trying to decipher wiring diagrams. I also have not checked for leaks in the fittings/ airlines yet. I was going to do that tomorrow. I've also got the 4wd position switch that goes next to the locker itself to install, I just haven't got around to it yet. My other thought for the front is to replace the pressure switch. I'd assume a faulty one would not trigger the compressor to build pressure or cycle properly.

Any thoughts/ help would be appreciated.

 

[hoser]

Nevermind the wiring for just a second. Is that gear oil around the compressor? If so, I suspect an internal air leak in the front locker and it spewing gear oil out from the breather. Hence the front locker won't lock and the compressor will just keep running. I would disconnect the electrical plug at the compressor for now and troubleshoot the rear locker. Take the rear actuator out and test it with a 9v battery.

 

[Sloth Cruiser]

Nevermind the wiring for just a second. Is that gear oil around the compressor? If so, I suspect an internal air leak in the front locker and it spewing gear oil out from the breather. Hence the front locker won't lock and the compressor will just keep running. I would disconnect the electrical plug at the compressor for now and troubleshoot the rear locker. Take the rear actuator out and test it with a 9v battery.

That's a good point. I was hoping it was just from the leaky valve cover gasket, but it does smell like gear oil....lame. Unhooked the power pigtail for the time being. Going to try clearing the air line of oil, new pressure switch just as maintenance as i am unsure of how old it is. Though the solenoind has a 08/2011 date on it so i'd imagine it's relatively old at this point. But upon further research it looks like leaky o-rings are not uncommon.

 

[Sloth Cruiser]

I was going to remove the actuator today, but ran out of time. With the compressor power unhooked I actually heard the rear locker actuate. This was after pulling the stock elocker "guard" and jiggling the wires around a bit. Sitting in my driveway in 4Lo (both with and without CDL locked) I could hear the locker moving. Sort of a loud whirring noise. Went down the road to a dirt lot and when i dropped into 4lo it wouldn't actuate anymore. So there's likely a wiring issue somewhere. ...Lame

Also, is the the normal rear locker indicator switch? I thought it was just going to be a standard pigtail (like the one on top of the t-case which uses the same switch). But this one has a different cover, which is shaped like the nut of the switch.

 

[hoser]

Well, that's kinda good news. Still, I would take the actuator and the switch out and clean them up including the connectors, since it hasn't been used in such a long time. You might already know this... but in addition to the Pin-7 mod, you can also bypass the HI/LO range requirement for the rear locker.

For the front locker, likely the pressure switch and solenoid are fine. There could be hole in the blue line or leaking at one of the end connections. Cross you fingers for that.... otherwise, the front diff has to come out.