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Power to the Wheels! Dana30 Lock-Right Install and Hub Replacement by Lee Wells 27-Sep-01

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Dana 30 Lock-Right	2310S Available from KY Offroad
2 Hub/Bearing Assemblies for Dana 30	Federal Mogul 513084 ($105 at Advanced Auto) Timken 513084 ($150 at Autozone)
New ring gear bolts

REMOVING TIRES, CALIPERS & ROTORS
First order of business is to jack up the front axle, set it on jack stands, and remove the wheels.  After that remove the brake calipers and rotors.  The calipers are held on with 2 13mm bolts from the back side.  After removing the bolts, compress the piston a little with a large C-Clamp.  That releases the rotor from the caliper.  Then hang the calipers from the control arm with a zip tie.... we did this, so the brake line wouldn't be stretched too far.

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Caliper removed and hung on control arm. Rotor removed.

PULLING THE HUBS & AXLE SHAFTS
If you are not replacing the hubs, you can skip this next step since the hubs & shafts can be pulled as one assembly.  The next job is to unbolt the axle shaft from the hub.  First remove the cotter pin, nut cover and spring.  This exposes the axle nut (36mm).  A air impact wrench makes taking off that nut easy.  If you don't have an impact wrench, it could be a little tough.... that bolt is torqued to 175 ft lbs.  A pry bar placed between lugs, going down to the ground will hold the hub in place while you put a breaker bar on the axle nut.  A couple of lug nuts on the studs will protect the threads.

The next step is to remove the hub assembly.  The hub is held in place with 3 13mm 12-point bolts.  Take these out, then tap out the hub assembly.  The brake dust shield will come out at the same time.

OPENING THE DIFFERENTIAL
Now the messy part... opening the differential.  To make life a little easier, pull the tie rod off of the driver side knuckle.  The tie rod sits right in front of the diff cover, so tying it up out of the way gives you more room to work.  First pull the safety pin, and then remove the nut.  Next use a puller to press the tie rod end out of the knuckle.

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John removing the tie rod.

Next we removed the FourX Doctor diff guard and diff cover.  Leave a couple of the bolts in loosely, so the entire cover will not pop off at once.  Crack open one corner and let the fluid drain into a pan, and then clean out the rest of the oil with brake cleaner.

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Open Dana 30 diff.

PULLING THE CARRIER
Next, note the orientation of the carrier bearing caps.  If you look closely at the picture below, you will see stamps in each cap (circled in RED), and matching stamps in the diff case.  We took a close-up picture in case we didn't keep the caps/bolts together correctly.  The bolts/caps need to go back in the exact way they came out, so the orientation is important.  They need to be put back on the same side, and in the same direction, so don't flip them around.  We loosened, but didn't remove, the bolts.  That way the carrier won't fall all the way out (on your head!).

REMOVING THE CROSS SHAFT & SPIDER GEARS
Next remove the cross shaft.  To do this you first have to tap out the roll pin that holds the cross shaft in place.  Insert a screwdriver into the whole on the top side of the carrier, and tap out the roll pin.  If you don't have a long enough screw driver, use an old drill bit along with the screw driver.  The cross shaft should slide then, and you can remove the spider gears.

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Removing the cross shaft.

When removing the spider gears, be sure to remove the thrust washers too.  There should be a washer behind each of the 4 gears.  You will need the 2 end washers (where the axle shaft slides in) to install the Lock-Right.  Next we cleaned off the carrier, the thrust washers, and Lock-Right pieces with brake cleaner.

ASSEMBLING THE LOCK-RIGHT
You should first read through the manual that came with your Lock-Right.  It contains detailed info on the installation, and this article is just meant as a supplement, not a replacement.  The pictures below are of the Lock-Right assembled outside of the carrier, for easier viewing.  You will actually build the Lock-Right in the carrier.
 

MED-RES   HIGH-RES Coupler and Thrust washer	First put a thrust washer on each outside coupler, and put the couplers into the carrier
MED-RES   HIGH-RES Driver, pins and springs	Next drop the pins into the holes in the drivers (2 in each driver so they drop out of the way).  A little grease will hold these in place.  Don't install the springs yet.
MED-RES   HIGH-RES (L-R) spacer, driver, spacer washer, coupler, thrust washer	Put the spacer and spacer-washer inside the driver... again grease will hold it in place.  The spacers open towards the teeth of the driver, and should seat with the spacer-washer. Apply a coat of grease to the teeth of the driver.
MED-RES   HIGH-RES One half - driver, spacer, coupler & thrust washer	Now install the drivers onto the couplers.  You will have to do one at a time and seat the teeth together.  There isn't enough room to drop both in as one piece.
MED-RES   HIGH-RES Assembled Lock-Right with cross shaft	Now rotate the driver/coupler pairs so that you can install the cross shaft, and put the new hardened cross shaft in place.  You may need to slide the spacers out of the way of the cross shaft.
MED-RES   HIGH-RES Installing pins and springs	Now assemble the springs.... one small spring inside of one large spring, with a little grease to hold them together.  You should have 4 assembled springs. Now the tricky part of installing the springs.  Slide the pins out of the spring window, and start the spring into the window, into the other driver.  Push it in place with a small screwdriver, and make sure its seated all the way.... otherwise it may pop out.  Repeat for all 4 springs. Now install the roll pin to hold the cross shaft in place.

A rubber mallet will come in handy when re-installing the carrier.  If you don't have a rubber mallet handy, place a 2x4 against the carrier, and tap the 2x4 with a regular hammer.... that will soften the blow enough to not damage the carrier or ring gear.  Its a little tricky to get everything in, so having another pair of hands helps.  You need to put both of the bearing races on the carrier, hold them in place, and then start the carrier into the housing.  It will go in easiest if you keep it square to the housing.  While one person holds it stable, have the other person tap it into place, working side to side, until the carrier is completely seated.  Once it is seated, put the bearing caps back in place.  Be sure to put them in the correct orientation, referencing the marks we mentioned above.  Now torque down the bearing cap bolts and you're almost done.

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Carrier with Lock-Right re-installed into diff.

REPLACE AXLE SHAFTS & HUBS
Now we will replace the hub/bearing assemblies.  First clean off the mating surfaces with brake cleaner and a rag.  These things tend to hold a lot of dirt, so you may have to scrub for a minute.  This would be a GREAT time to inspect or change out your front axle U-joints since they are already out of the axle.  We didn't do it on John's, his appeared to be in good shape, but we probably should have anyway just as preventative maintenance.  Now re-insert the axle shafts carefully.  You don't want to damage the inner oil seal (just outside the carrier), so very gently re-insert the axle shafts.

Then apply anti seize to the hub mounting surfaces, and to the splines on the axle shafts.  Nothing is worse than seized parts, so we really lubed them up.

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Anti seizing the hub mating surface and axle shaft.

Now its time to install the new hubs.  The brake dust shields go between the knuckle and hub, but we left them off of John's.  The idea being that the shields just hold in more dirt and mud against the rotors.  If you want to put yours back on, do it now.  Now slide the hub over the axle shaft splines.  Once the splines are engaged, line up the 3 mounting holes with the holes in the knuckle.  Be very careful on the alignment, because you don't want to cross thread a bolt here either!  After the holes are aligned, the hub should seat with just a little force, or maybe a mild tap of a hammer.  Apply anti seize to the 12 point bolts, and torque them down to 75 ft lbs.

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Installing the new hub.

The next step is to install the axle nut.  First place the washer over the end of the axle shaft, then get the nut started.  The nut needs to be torqued to 175 ft lbs, so holding the axle shaft still can be tricky.  We placed a pry bar between 2 studs, and against the ground to hold the hub & shaft still.  Then its easy to torque down the nut.  After the nut is torqued down, install the washer-spring, the castle nut cover, and finally re-insert the cotter pin and bend the tabs so that everything is securely held in place.  If the pin hole doesn't line up correctly with the cover, rotate the cover one notch and you should be fine.  Worst case, tighten the nut just a little more to get everything to line up correctly.

REPLACE ROTORS & CALIPERS
We're just about there!  The next step is to re-install the brake rotor and caliper.  First place the rotor on the hub assembly.  Untie the caliper from the control arm, and slide it over the edge of the rotor, and make sure that it seats correctly against the knuckle.  There are 2 slots at the bottom that rest against the lower arm of the knuckle.  Seat those first, then push the top into position.  Once its all lined up, re-install the 2 caliper bolts and torque to 11 ft lbs.

TEST THE LOCK-RIGHT
Next we re-installed the tires so we could easily test out the Lock-Right.  The Lock-Right manual give a full test procedure, but basically you are looking to see if the Lock-Right really locks the shafts together, and to make sure that either side is free to ratchet past the other side.

MED-RES   HIGH-RES	Testing the Lock-Right
	Video clip 1 of Lock-Right in action 5.82MB QuickTime 18 seconds
	Video clip 2 of Lock-Right in action 1.99MB QuickTime 6 seconds

REPLACE THE DIFF COVER
If everything is working correctly, its time to seal up the diff cover.  Be sure the gasket surface is clean, and no RTV is left on the diff surface, or the cover surface.  If you're going to use RTV for the gasket, apply a bead around the entire circumference of the diff cover and let it set up for about 5 minutes.  If you're using a paper gasket, then you just need to line it up with the bolt holes.  After the RTV has set up, re-install the diff cover and bolts.  We also replaced John's FourX Doctor diff guard at the same time.  The cover only goes on correctly in one orientation, otherwise the ring gear will be grinding against it (and it probably won't seal up!)  Torque the bolts down to 30 ft lbs.  Next, refill the diff with gear oil.  We used 80w-90 and filled until it started trickling out the fill hole.  Once its filled, reinsert the plug, and torque it to 25 ft lbs.

The last step is to reinstall the tie rod end.  Just put the end into the knuckle, start the castle nut, then torque to 55 ft lbs.  Install the cotter pin, and you're done.  You can set the Jeep down off of the jack stands.  If the hole for the pin doesn't line up, tighten the nut a little more.... never loosen a nut to get the pin to align.

FINISHED
Now its time to go out and have fun!!!  We tested it out a little in my yard, then took it for a spin in 2wd on the road to make sure everything felt good.  Once you get it off road, you will really notice the difference.  The steering will be quite a bit heavier, and under steep descents, the steering may actually bind up.  You can work around this, by slowly rocking the Jeep back and forth while continuing to turn the steering wheel.  Its slow, but it will work.  Of course the big difference is the additional traction!  You'll be crawling over all kinds of big rocks now!