There are times when I'd like to leave the rear open and only have the front locked. From what I can see on the wiring diagram, it looks like I can just put a spst switch in between the magic dial and the rear locker pin - will the ecu allow this?
Hacking the magic dial to engage only the front locker
- Thread starter nukegoat
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- #2
I just jumpered the pins. It looks like the ecu doesn't allow this. Without the rear pinout jumpers, the front won't energize. Does anyone have any ideas here?
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I don't but I can't imagine a time you would want the front locked that having the rear locked would hurt. In fact to avoid breakage, you want to keep the front open as much as possible. With the front locked you will break if you turn, backup or put a lot of stress on one side vs the other. You could run with the rear locked all day and not break anything
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- #4
Happens to me a lot. When you're trying to pivot around a tight obstacle and your rear tires need to follow a nice smooth radius without slipping off into a hole, unlocking the rear would be nice.
I imagine you probably don't do a lot of rock crawling but it's more common than you'd think.
Thats the situation I see most people break a birf. any turning while locked puts tremendous stress on the side inside the turn radius. It has nothing to do with rock climbing.
BTW I don't mean to come down on what you are asking for. Just relaying my experience. I don't know how to rewire the 80. I know with the ARB lockers in my 40 I can engage the lockers independently.
I only can lock my front locker with the locker switch. The rear locker is operated by a cable (broke the rear actuator). When I turn the switch to lock front it locks just fine without having the rear locked. The only thing hooked up to the rear is the ball switch that sends signal to dash to know its locked. The rest of the rear locker harness is unplugged.
On jack stands the other day I turned the locker switch and could hear the electric motor engage. Didn't have the rear locker engaged. Reason I did that was, I tried to lock the front diff last snow storm when trying to pull a Ford truck stuck in a pile of snow on the road across the street from me. I drove back and forth while turning the steering wheel and it wouldn't lock. Thinking it was stuck I put it on jack stands and listened to hear the actuator work (it did) and turned the front wheel to confirm that it locked (it did).
Try unplugging the rear actuator and lock the front diff, if it works like mine does, then splice in a switch and test again.
On jack stands the other day I turned the locker switch and could hear the electric motor engage. Didn't have the rear locker engaged. Reason I did that was, I tried to lock the front diff last snow storm when trying to pull a Ford truck stuck in a pile of snow on the road across the street from me. I drove back and forth while turning the steering wheel and it wouldn't lock. Thinking it was stuck I put it on jack stands and listened to hear the actuator work (it did) and turned the front wheel to confirm that it locked (it did).
Try unplugging the rear actuator and lock the front diff, if it works like mine does, then splice in a switch and test again.
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- #8
I am not debating that it stresses things to use the front locker while turned. I'm just arguing that there are scenarios where it's helpful to have the rear open to avoid being plowed forward, especially in the rocks where losing your line a bit can be a real pita.
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- #9
I was thinking of just adding a switch to open the circuit to the rear so it never gets power... kinda ghetto but it might work. Thanks.
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- #11
What? I don't want to freewheel the rear, I just want it to be unlocked sometimes while the front is still locked.
Perhaps but freewheeling for tight radiuses while the front pulls seems to work pretty well for crawlers. I'm not suggesting it I'm just commenting that I see an application where it makes sense.
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- #13
Oh - like front digs and stuff. Yeah that's beyond my aptitude
If you want to unlock the rear without unlocking the front, you might have to run two switches, one for the front and one for the rear. I assume it would take some creative wiring to compete that task.
My rear actuator isn't working at the moment. When I turn the switch to lock both front and rear, the front locks up, the light for the rear just keeps on flashing. So on a '95 at least, the black box does not seem to care if the rear is locked or not before engaging the front.
I would like to do this also. I looked at doing a while back and IIRC the challenge I saw the way the computer is set up the rear needs to be activated before the front. IIRC the interruption (switched) needed to be down stream from the computer. In doing so the interruption needed to take place prior to selecting the rear to avoid winding up the rear actuator spring.
Not much help here and have read that the rear needs to be locked for the front to enable. In my case I have a aussie in the rear and swapped a factory elocked axle in the front, with the locker ecu and and magic dial. Nothing connected to the rear wiring. The front just locks. I dunno, seems possible.
paging @ThreeEyedBandit ; he had some plan if we couldn't find a locker ecu.
paging @ThreeEyedBandit ; he had some plan if we couldn't find a locker ecu.
I didn't read any reply's because I know what people probably said. So you tried jumpering only the B/G wire to L/B wire and it wouldn't energize the front only? The FSM is pretty unclear if this is possible, if it isn't I would just put a SPST switch between one of the two power wires between the locker controller and the rear locker motor(G or G/L).
The second idea will work, just not sure if the first idea will.
The second idea will work, just not sure if the first idea will.
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- #19
Right. As far as I can tell there is no way to tell the ecu to only energize the front motor. I think another idea is to add some sort of circuit just to reverse the outputs so it thinks it's energizing the rear motor but run the output to the front and vice versa.
Or, like you said, disconnect the rear motor from the equation.
Or just ditch the magic dial and factory setup.
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- #20
I will probably do this.
The only crappy thing here is that it'll be awkward to everyone but me. Oh well.