Diff lock stuck or not?????

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J

jimmyjimll

New Member
Posts
18
Location
Lancastercestershire
Please help. 300TDI 95 with 111000 in lancaster. Came down iced up hill this morning with low ratio and diff lock on to descend. Took it out of diff lock to then drive on the normal non-iced up roads but the diff lock light on the dah stays on. I can put the lever of the transfer box back and forth as if I was in the neutral position and going from diff lock to normal. Trouble is, I can do that even if the transfer box lever is in high or low ratio position!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't sound too good to me!

I've jacked up one of the wheels and engaged 1st whilst having the other 3 wheels chocked. the wheel (Front near side) in the air spins. Am I right to presume that the diff lock is therefore not engaged?? I don't really want to drive it if the diff is stuck on!! I know it is central diff lock. not entirely sure if the test I've described is sufficient to see if the diff is locked or not! I really don't want to fook the drive components by hooning around on dry roads!!!!

Please help all!!!!

Many thanks

Jimbo
 
Try what Sean says first, that normally works.

If no joy, I guess you could test to see if it's on by driving it round in a very tight circle (as tight as a landy will do!) on some grippy tarmac (that's not covered in snow or ice), you should feel the front wheels hop and slide outwards if it's on. It should feel weird at any rate but hard to describe.
 
Cheers chaps, I'll give that a go when I finish work in about an hour. Forgive my lack of transmission type knowledge but..... What will that do in realation to the transfer box? Just trying to satisfy my "what the bejeesus is going on there" part of my brain!

Ta
J
 
When you put the difflock on and the wheels turns at different speeds to each other, there is 'tension' build up in the drive system. So if you reverse this tension is released, hopefully making the difflock light go out! :D
 
A bless ya!! Many thanks!! Any ideas on the lever being able to move to and fro even though its back in the high ratio position??? Is that as bad as I think it sounds??? I know i know..... I always want more!
 
This is the reason it's dangerous for garages to test your brakes for an MOT or give a dyno run on a single axel tester as it winds the drivetrain up and can cause stuff to break if it's run for too long.
 
hi, the diff lock lever pushes on a spring inside the transfer box, when you take it out of diff lock the lever has no physical connection with the spring so although out of difflock the spring can remain pushed up against diff switch which illuminates the dash light, making you think diff is still engaged when its not. this happens mostly on vehicles which dont use difflock often,and can take hours for spring to return to usual position,to speed it up you can reverse in a straight line, usually a few metres is enough, or your diff switch could be faulty. hope this helps
 
Get your head underneath while somebody operates the tranny box lever and check it moves thru full travel. If not get the WD40 in there and a lever bar etc to free it up if it is operating slacken the switch off a bit till the light goes out or better still take the switch out and clean the crap off it and refit and adjust till the light works as it should. No real need to faff around with jacks etc till you have proved it is not the operating rods etc. Ive done a fair few of these over the years. Nobody cleans/ greases the transfer box controls on a service but years of grit **** and grime can stop it all working especially with the help of old jack frost
 
Last edited:
jimmyjimll said:
A bless ya!! Many thanks!! Any ideas on the lever being able to move to and fro even though its back in the high ratio position??? Is that as bad as I think it sounds??? I know i know..... I always want more!
Click to expand...

Do you mean "to and fro" to difflock and not difflock..i.e side to side? If so that's the right behaviour, you can engage difflock in either high or low range
 
Thanks all!! I can confirm that the Diff lock is Not engaged. The reversing trick worked a treat!! I cannot select diff lock now though which is a bit of ****er! The play that I was referring to is side to side ie. from near side to off side. When the transfer box is in the high ratio with Diff lock not selected, I can push the transfer gear stick left (Towards the near side) whist it is still back in the high ratio position. Would that sound like a bushes / Linkage fault or more sinister!!!??? Any advice still very gratefully received!! J
 
You can push the lever sideways to engage difflock no matter what position the lever is front to back. High, neutral, or low, it's not a H shaped box, as the picture/lever leads you to believe, think of it as a figure 8.
 
Think of it like:

Bottom-right (normal) high range, no diff lock
Bottom-Left high range + diff lock
Top-right Low range no diff lock
Top-left Low range + diff lock.
 
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