ARB air lockers for base

[Dominic Nonnenmacher]

Since ARB has teamed up with ford to give us a bunch of their accessories for our Broncos, has anyone who’s buying a base non-squatch model like myself considered getting an ARB air locker for the rear when they start producing them? Does anyone have any experience with their air lockers and the reliability of them?

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[drive21bronco]

I am buying a Black Diamond and I am hoping they will come out with an air locker for the M190 front axle that the base model and Black Diamond share. I emailed them about it but have not received an answer yet.

 

[Murph914]

I am waiting to hear more as well. Torn on the front axle. On one hand I'm not going to offroad too much, and I imagine a lighter axle would handle much nicer. On the other hand, it seems like if you're upgrading to a locker it may be prudent to upgrade the whole axle.

 

[rgwinn]

I first looked at ARB lockers in 1991 for my explorer. I know several People that have had them in various rigs over the years, for the most part, not many problems. Just have to have the compressor and airlines. But, then you also end up with onboard Air compressor. ARB makes quality products.

 

[Apples]

I've run air lockers on my Nissans. They're fantastic. Often stronger than the stock carrier and definitely stronger than most e-lockers.

There are drawbacks. You have to have on-board air for them and if you damage an air hose you lose use of the locker. At least with an e-locker you can splice the harness back together if need be. In the 2 years I was running them, I had to replace both solenoids because they seized and the guy I sold it to had to replace one shortly after he bought it from me. They aren't hard to replace but they don't give you any warning until you're out on the trail and need your locker.

 

[peta8368]

I am seriously considering this too. My only hesitation is the welded ring gear on the stock open diffs. How much more will that bump up the cost in parts and labor? I believe we'll need new ring and pinion gears, which is $250 a set for the rear, guestimating similar cost for the front. But how much is labor going to cost me? decisions.......................

Peter

 

[Apples]

I am seriously considering this too. My only hesitation is the welded ring gear on the stock open diffs. How much more will that bump up the cost in parts and labor? I believe we'll need new ring and pinion gears, which is $250 a set for the rear, guestimating similar cost for the front. But how much is labor going to cost me? decisions.......................

Peter

I believe you'll only need the ring gear. Other than the actual part cost, it shouldn't significantly increase the total cost. The carrier already has to be pulled out when installing the locker so the tech will have to realign the ring gear regardless.

 

[grimmjeeper]

ARB has a great reputation in the off road community as far as their lockers are concerned.

Most people who have issues with them have problems with the installation. But a quality shop will have someone who knows how to install them right.

Snagging the air line on something or failed solenoids happens but not often.

As far as install cost. If you had a bolt on ring gear and just swapped in the locker, you're looking at maybe 2 hours of shop labor and new bearings for the carrier. And you want new bearings because they're pressed on to the carrier and getting them off can damage them. So it's quick to just put new ones on. Usually, especially in a new axle, you can pretty much just swap the shims and it will install with no trouble. There's an outside chance they need to tweak the shims a hair to get it right. But not much beyond that.

With a welded ring gear you really want to do a full ring and pinion install. The ring and pinion gears pretty much pair for life and you can't replace one and have high expectations of it working well. Besides, you really can only get gears in sets so you're buying the pinion anyway.

That means a full install kit (add pinion bearings and shims), and several more hours of labor. A good shop can knock out a full gear swap in probably 4-6 hours.

So maybe $75 for the locker only install kit. Figure twice that for the full install kit. The gears are $250-300 or so. Then figure the shop labor for a carrier swap and add 2-3 hours for a full gear install.

Shops vary in their prices quite a lot so shop around if you can.

 

[grimmjeeper]

I believe you'll only need the ring gear. Other than the actual part cost, it shouldn't significantly increase the total cost. The carrier already has to be pulled out when installing the locker so the tech will have to realign the ring gear regardless.

Ring and pinion gears form a wear pattern together. You maybe could get lucky and install just a ring gear but it most likely wouldn't break in properly and you'd have to replace both. Not only that, different manufacturers may have a slightly misaligned pitch to the teeth on the gears and they won't mesh at all. Because of this, no shop will warranty the install of just a new ring gear with an old pinion.

Besides, you can't buy just a ring gear. You can only buy a matched pair. So there's no good reason not to do it right in the first place and just replace both.

 

[peta8368]

ARB has a great reputation in the off road community as far as their lockers are concerned.

Most people who have issues with them have problems with the installation. But a quality shop will have someone who knows how to install them right.

Snagging the air line on something or failed solenoids happens but not often.

As far as install cost. If you had a bolt on ring gear and just swapped in the locker, you're looking at maybe 2 hours of shop labor and new bearings for the carrier. And you want new bearings because they're pressed on to the carrier and getting them off can damage them. So it's quick to just put new ones on. Usually, especially in a new axle, you can pretty much just swap the shims and it will install with no trouble. There's an outside chance they need to tweak the shims a hair to get it right. But not much beyond that.

With a welded ring gear you really want to do a full ring and pinion install. The ring and pinion gears pretty much pair for life and you can't replace one and have high expectations of it working well. Besides, you really can only get gears in sets so you're buying the pinion anyway.

That means a full install kit (add pinion bearings and shims), and several more hours of labor. A good shop can knock out a full gear swap in probably 4-6 hours.

So maybe $75 for the locker only install kit. Figure twice that for the full install kit. The gears are $250-300 or so. Then figure the shop labor for a carrier swap and add 2-3 hours for a full gear install.

Shops vary in their prices quite a lot so shop around if you can.

Thank you very much for the information! I had no idea how much longer the labor was going to take, so that's extremely helpful.

In total, I'm looking at $550 for the ARB twin compressor, $2000 for front and rear airlockers, $500-600 in ring and pinion sets, $300 for install kits, and about $1000-1200 in labor to install it all. (about $4500 total + tax)

Does that sound correct?

That's getting into Sasquatch territory.... Maybe I should just get it sasquatched.............


Peter

 

[swooshdave]

I was going to say that it's not cheap either way. I guess if you had a shop you trusted explicitly you might save a little. Or if you don't trust e-lockers at all.

 

[Apples]

That's getting into Sasquatch territory.... Maybe I should just get it sasquatched.............

Sasquatch is a really good deal. You're getting the suspension, transfer case, wheels and tires in that package as well. The only catch is if you want a manual ....

 

[grimmjeeper]

Yeah, doing a ring and pinion change with lockers is expensive.

Thing is, it doesn't cost any more to change to any ratio you like. So you you wouldn't have to pay extra for any particular ratio when you order the Bronco. You can just change it when you do the install.

I suspect the same thing will happen with the Sasquatch package that happens with the Wrangler Rubicon. It's the easy button and a whole lot of people will choose it because it comes with everything you need already installed. Sure, it's expensive. But when you look at making a bunch of changes to a base model, the price isn't as unreasonable as you may have thought. And off the showroom floor, those factory off road packages let you run maybe 80-90% of the trails out there.

On the other hand, the Sasquatch and Rubicon are good but only up to a certain point. And there's the people who want to go on those trails up near the "oh hell no" end of the scale. For that, you need to take your build to another level. People who go up to that level are more likely to start with a base model that gets them the interior bits they like and they replace essentially the entire drivetrain. Dana 60s, Atlas transfer case, V8 swap, etc. If you're going to do that, it makes sense to skip the Squatch/Rubicon type package and have less expensive stock parts to get rid of.

 

[Tech Tim]

Definitely going with Air Lockers front and rear for my Bronco.

I'll echo what @grimmjeeper said

Most people who have issues with them have problems with the installation. But a quality shop will have someone who knows how to install them right.

ARB has been building super high quality lockers for decades. I have ran them in many past off road vehicles. Looking forward to giving them a go in the Bronco when it gets here.

 

[Dominic Nonnenmacher]

Thank you very much for the information! I had no idea how much longer the labor was going to take, so that's extremely helpful.

In total, I'm looking at $550 for the ARB twin compressor, $2000 for front and rear airlockers, $500-600 in ring and pinion sets, $300 for install kits, and about $1000-1200 in labor to install it all. (about $4500 total + tax)

Does that sound correct?

That's getting into Sasquatch territory.... Maybe I should just get it sasquatched.............


Peter

If you want both front and rear lockers right away maybe Sasquatch is the better option for you overall . But for me and what I do, I think a rear ARB air locker will be more than sufficient, and the front locker with the 35’s may be overkill for me considering this 2 door base will be my daily driver...

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