Thread: Remember building Lincoln lockers when you were a kid...

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So some things never change... My son has a very nice jeep wrangler that he has been making more off road capable as the money comes avaliable for it. Last week he decided to build some tube fenders here at the shop. On his way home the jeep started making some wild sounds from the underbelly of the beast. After a day of tightening all his fancy long arm suspension, track bars, etc. it was still noisy. Come to find out the spiders in his rear end were trying to get out! So I took the next day off to walk him through the spider game...

With Jeeps the hot set up is to use the heavy duty stuff if possible so some time ago we located a narrowed 60 that needs mountswelded on and a matching unit for the front. I called John down the street at Border Parts and he had the spiders in stock so we bought a set. After some wrenching we discovered that some one had changed out his jeep Dana 30 diff for an earlier model than what should be in his 2000 wrangler. So the option now is go to the expense of buying a front matching dana 60 for $1000.00, repair an under rated Dana 30 with a new carrier, spiders, for around $300.00 or go back to the 50's and make it a lincoln locker for free. Needless to say he was up for welding so lincoln locker is was. Everything worked out just fine, and the look on his face when he pulled out of the driveway was worth the effort. Think the dana 60 is his new priority. LOL

After it was all over I went to you tube and darn if building lincoln lockers isnt all over the place. Guess the drifters are doing it as well? Hearing that Jeep cherping down the street brought back a lot of memories and a big smile to my face. KIDS!

I used to do that back in the late 60s early 70s while running stock cars welding machine and some washers OH YEAH.

I've done it to a lot of diesel trucks used for pulling. I used to just go in there and weld the spiders to each other. A while back I had an older friend of mine tell me to just weld the void inbetween the gears and do it on either side of a gear so there is still some play. I started doing this and never had anyone brake one after that and a guy with no lock outs could still get off the track. Most of the ones I did were D60's and in the front. definitely a cheap alternative but still risky to breakage.

I did that to my 55 Ford and on the way home from the drag strip there was a little chacane in the road and they broke---left the car there for a couple hours and when we got back to pick it up the dual quads were missing-last time I did that---Detroit Lockers, Spools and Halibrand 3 in live axles ever since-------

I have done a few, in my old jeep, I had put in a dana 44, same thing happened was coming home from work one day and bam the spiders wanted out, I had the same choices as your son, and chose the Lincoln locker.

I like to shim (washer cut in half) the back side of the spiders and weld them to the case, I also do this to the axle gears, then weld the spiders/axle gears together were they touch, I have never had one break even driving on the street. The reason I do it this way is if the welded spiders break, you will need a new carrier anyways, that would be the time to buy a Detroit which would replace all but the ring gear.

Just my 2 cents.
Godspeed
MrC.