Offroad gearbox build

Were you in auto or manual mode?
 
So this momentary unlocking/locking you get is when the car is stationary? Does it still do it while you're moving forward or the wheels are spinning?
 
Home made controller but equivalent to manual mode under full lock.

NachaLuva it's only whilst drive train is moving (car moving or wheels spinning). The way a DCCD is designed it requires movement to lock. Until there is a difference in rotation the locking signal to the diff does essentially nothing, a small amount of pressure is put on the controlling clutch but no pressure on the locking clutch. If the front wheels slip it locks then if the front wheels stop slipping and the rear starts to slip it unlocks then relocks in the other direction.
 
This is a 5 speed DCCD isn't it? Later 6 speed DCCD's (ADM MY06 onwards) also include a plated centre diff
 
From another thread you mentioned a tilt switch on the oil feed, wonder if you could put some info in here...
 
taza said:
If money is no issue you can buy a navars R180 locker and fit it into an STI, r180 rear diff. It's been done but in the end all comes down to money.
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Any details or specifics on this? What kind of locker was this? Who did it? When? What car did it go into? Any links to the info?
 
Hmmm…I'm not experiencing the same as Dedman with my DCCD. When I turn the knob to "lock", front and rear have the same amount of torque and it doesn't open any time unless making a U turn on tarmac and then it makes some very strong "clonks".

The "lock" is effective as soon as I turn the knob.
 
Yeah found a few vague references from people imagining things but not any solid info on anyone actually doing it or specifics on models etc.
 
Probably they would, it's in their current application charts at least. Except it's for shortnose live-axel type diffs, not sure how that'd go mixing and matching with Subaru housings and stub axels etc.
I remember seeing a picture on USMB of a guy who'd put some kind of live axel setup into the back of his L series but haven't heard of anyone doing it with a more Subaru-like IRS setup. I remember googling my donkey of a few years ago for this lol.
 
I did a little mod on my DCCD controller today. The DCCD can be locked but unlocks automatically when pulling the handbrake because it has been designed for rally cars. But thats no good when offroading so I added a switch to keep it locked while using the handbrake so that my rear Quaife helical differential thinks I have both rear wheels with traction even when a diagonal spin occurs…I will test that this weekend.
 
AndrewT said:
Any details or specifics on this? What kind of locker was this? Who did it? When? What car did it go into? Any links to the info?
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Beigewagon knows the bloke who did it I think so maybe PM him. I believe it was in the back of a brumby but apart from that I dont know any more details.

jf1sf5 said:
Hmmm…I'm not experiencing the same as Dedman with my DCCD. When I turn the knob to "lock", front and rear have the same amount of torque and it doesn't open any time unless making a U turn on tarmac and then it makes some very strong "clonks".

The "lock" is effective as soon as I turn the knob.
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DCCD only has 50:50 torques split when driving in a straight line with all wheels having good traction except for that the torques spit is anything from 0:100 to 100:0 what is important is that the front and rear drive shafts rotate at the same speed.

I am 100% sure I am correct about DCCD unlocking and relocking all the time and checked this by jacking up one front wheel on my car. If you turn it forwards by hand it rotates (not much) until the diff locks. If you then try to turn it further forwards as hard as you can you get a small amount of rotation as the diff creates a stronger lock. If you then try to rotate the wheel backwards there is some initial resistance as the diff unlocks then it will easily spin about a 1/4 turn backwards until it locks in reverse.

This is by far the best description I have found for how DCCD works
https://igotasti.com/vBforum/showthread.php/263-DCCD-info-and-FAQs

Maybe there is something else in my drive train that is making the lock unlock lock far more pronounced than it should be so if everything else is in order it is not noticeable...
 
Havent had time to read it all but this exerpt is good from above link:

"When the DCCD is in the lock setting and the front tries are on a slick surface(ice, grass, dirt, gravel, etc.) and the rear tires are on a high traction surface(tarmac, pavement, hardball, etc.) the amount of torque required to spin the front wheels wil be much less than the amount of torque required to spin the rear wheels. When the front tires start to spin the DCCD will sense the loss of traction and send all torque(minus what is needed in the front tires) to the rear tires to maintain positive traction. Once the car starts to move forward and the front tires move onto the tarmac and the rear tires move onto ice the DCCD will compensate again by transferring the torque to the front wheels.

When the DCCD is set to lock the front and rear wheels will rotate at the same speed, meaning that even though the rear wheels have more traction than the fronts and the rear wheels will get the majority of the torque the front wheels wil rotate at the same speed as the rears. Because of this function of the DCCD you may sometimes experience loud noises coming from the diff. For example, if the DCCD is set to lock and you are on tarmac making a sharp turn without a loss of traction you will experience clunking. Since the front wheels will be traveling a longer distance than the rears and the center diff makes the wheels rotate the same amount you will experience the clunking and popping of the center diff."
 
When i had a chat with arb Bendigo about a locker they said the only available was a r200m which 'fits' in the r180 housing on pathfinders but they didn't think it'd work with the suby rear dif housing
 
Our Subie diffs are R160 so they definitely wont fit lol. But there is a Subie R180 diff which a lot of WRX & Liberty GT owners convert to as its stronger. If it fits in the Nissan R180 it will fit in the Subie R180 :lildevil:
 
... and as with most things people on here don't want to spend thousands of dollars to make a old $4k subaru into something decent.. Most people don't want to spend 10k worth of motor and gearbox in a car that is work nothing.
 
Yea we were talking about the r180 housing. The r180 for the pathfinder front diff I think is bigger the oil capacity vs the wrx definitely is.

But as taza says is the cost really worth it at all. Personally I don't think it is
 
NachaLuva said:
If it fits in the Nissan R180 it will fit in the Subie R180 :lildevil:
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I've done a bit of R&D on this recently, not with the R180 specifically but I can tell you this is quite unlikely. There are many differences between housings such as input and axel splines (both count and diameter), positioning, circlip positioning or if there are circlips or not, etc.
It looks to me that the only real option is to choose one of the diffs from arb's application chart and work on mods external to the diff to retrofit it to the Suby. Trouble is almost all of them are live axel setups, and matching the ratio to suit a Suby also severely limits options.
 
Dedman said:
Maybe one day I will find one of these locking EJ AWD boxes...
https://offroadingsubarus.com/trihybrid_gearbox.html
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Hehehe... not an EJ gearbox. Phiz built it into an EJ housing. A front LSD is a must in this setup otherwise you'll be spinning one front wheel on hard cornering particularly in the wet! Worth the effort if you're willing to put one together - it's an effort as they only came in 3.7 and 3.9 ratios. Hard box to find and the 3.9 is harder to find again...

As for the off topic locker talk - I've met the guy who's running the Hilux locker in the back of his MY. It's a wagon and the guy's name is Len. Unfortunately I don't have his contact details but Beigewagon I believe is in contact with him.

Len put together a DVD of how he did it. He cut down a live axle and made his own stubs and oil seal setup. Then mounted it in the back of the MY - it's HUGE! I've had the idea of using the hilux IFS diff, got two in the shed to play with but haven't gone much further than this so far partly due to time and the hope that someone came good on an r160 locker...

Cheers

Bennie

PS/Edit: The locking and unlocking you're feeling through the drive train could be the slop in that tail shaft centre bearing...
 
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