Dan Marino

The good news is that it works.

Warning-You get a great product but the directions for the front locker are generic because pictures and print take you through installing an Eaton E in the rear of a chevy. There are not printed directions for the Dodge grindings let alone a true picture of a front locker installation.

The bad news is - this is not an easy modification like it is advertised.
In fact, some major grinding work needs done on not one part - but two. The first and easeist of the two grindings is on the bearing cap. The elctromagnet has a head on it that needs to set in place so it will not rotate. The left bearing cap has a bolt and a clip underneath the bolt that has to be ground down and then some grinding into the bearing cap to make a place for the head to sit into. A small tack weld between the clip needs done also.

The worst part of the whole deal is the grinding inside the differential housing.
The elctromagnet on the diff. needs 1/4 inch of material ground out of the diff housing. And here is where the major problem lies. You have to take so much metal out that the back of the housing that it becomes paper thin. We had to scab in a protective piece on back of the housing (outside) the housing where the grinding came through.

There were two professionals working on this mod. They would only grind a small fraction at a time out and then lift the diff in to see if it would fit. It took over two hours of this back and forth to where it was finally able to fit. By the time it fit, the grinding had came through. There were no green horns doing this mod, and I reccomend that you not try this if you dont have some great skills.

Another issue is the hole that needs drilled into the top of the housing for the wires that activate the locker. I still have a small amount of leakage around this area. The directions were followed to the "T" so - not sure about this issue as of right now. If you try it, good luck. Also, if your grinding does not come through, I reccomend that you still build some sort of web on the outside for protection.

Ramtough

hmm thanks. people always say yeah 1/8" grinding was all she needed then reallife tells you the internet is full of bad info. This was what worried me, the grinding. yeah no thanks and thats really too bad.

Dan Marino

I have talked with a tech at Randy's Ring and Pinion several times over the past two weeks. He claimed they have done countless of these mods using the Eaton E locker made for the GM AAM 9.25 and put it on the Dodge AAM 9.25. I called him back today and just wanted to relay my experience and he seemed amazed. He was like - we have never had a problem with grinding through the diff housing on one of these ever - did countless of these.

So I was wondering..??? Since they have done so many of these why are we not hearing about it from anyone besides me??? The question really is -Is there anyone else out there actually running this Eaton? I mean it works like a dream-cant hear it lock in/lock out. Does what I wanted but...just hate to have went through what I did. Someone find another guy who has done it so I can ask if they had the same problems as I did.

WSnyder

Dan check danshsss's response to my questions about the install you've just completed. https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...t=92614&page=2
You are not the only one that has had to do more than minimal grinding. I too talked to Randy's a couple of times along with other vendors and I never got a warm fuzzy feeling that this was as simple as they said it would be. Once I had the units in hand and looked over the instructions I had a worse feeling about it and started asking more questions. I have two of these to install and now I'm not so sure I'm looking forward to it. I can do the work, but I just don't relish the thought of modifying things to make them work anymore. You said you had to "scab in" does this mean you welded in a patch? I really don't want to weld on my housing and once again I have the tools but I really don’t want to go to this extreme. I may go with an epoxy buildup if mine gets that thin. If you welded did you do it just because of the perforation or were you worried about the structure becoming weak as well? I would think (hope) the structure is fairly sound after the grinding because two of the installs on this board have been on sled pull trucks. Maybe I should have waited until the Eaton/Dodge no sell to the public agreement was up and then bought the unit they are using in the Power Wagon.

Dan Marino

First off reading through that link to the thread from 2003 makes me feel good about the dependability of the locker. The thing that everyone should worry about is if the grinding didnt come through - how paper thin the housing is. To answer the second question I am not worried about mine now because of the weld up we did with brazing. We added another 1/4 inch metal and maybe 1/8 brazing on top of that.

What we did was this: Finally found the perfect fit. Took it down and then inspected the grinding because we knew it was getting close. Found a very tiny hole. Determined how thin the metal was and then proceeded to take out all the thin stuff by going ahead and grinding it out for precaution. We had a 1 inch tall by maybe 1/4 inch wide gash once we finally got it ground to where we were satisfied that it could be patched neatly and correctly and also so as to have thick enough metal to braze to. worked 90% of the weld on the outside - 10% on the inside. Ground the inside to a perfect smooth brass finish. Built the outside up ground the edges smooth-It honestly looks okay. If you didnt know what to look for you cant tell its there.

For precaution I am talking to another welder who welds cast all the time. He is going to build up another web over top what we have done already and add another 1/4 maybe even 1/2 inch and tie in two corners of the cast housing over top of our weld. He has welded for 31 years. He told me to run it and forget about it becuase what we did was fine. But I have persisted and he said it would make it bomb-proof if he went over it again.

I dont want to scare anyone - just trying to say it isnt as easy as the guys who sell them say it is.

Something that I dont think works is the Power wagon Tracrite E lockers you are talking about waiting on. Dodge said they would sell me one but the Power Wagon 9.25 and the Cummins 9.25 are different -they said it wouldnt work because of something outside the axles. They could have ben wrong though - it wouldnt be the first time.

Pearce

Just thinking of reasons here, but since the GM 9.25 is IFS it could be a totaly different center section but the same guts? And thats why it goes in them no probem.

PourinDiesel

Good thread.
Looks like I'll just wait for the right locker built specifically for out trucks!!

Anyone need a new in box eaton e cheap?

Don M

I know John @ Floor It Diesel got his installed last year about this time, but we did not go into any details on install difficulty.

Sounds like a tough one

Don~

Berak

I have no first hadn experience with these at all but someone posted here or on TDR that there was a "new version" of the Eaton E-locker that fit both the GM and Dodge AAM 9.25 with no grinding / modifications needed. Anyone know anything about that?

PourinDiesel

that was mis info

gus's 03

those are on the shelf as well, got to wire it your self though.. all it gives you is a couple inch pigtale....
side by side the only difereance we could see wold be the grinding on the cap otherwise idetical..

only reason i can think of that you had to grind that much was if you have3.73's, the 4.10s put the carrierer slightly over further...

WSnyder

I was mistaken in thinking it was Eaton that supplied the lockers for the Power Wagon. AAM is supplying their own carriers. The TracRite EL in the front which is very similar to the Eaton ELocker and the TracRite GTL in the rear which is basically the helical gear unit we have now with the capability to lock it. The front is a 9.25" and the rear is a 10.5" using the larger axles out of the 11.5" rear (diesel application). I wonder if the reason Dan was given that the front carrier will not work is if it the ring gear mounting flange is offset for the 4.56 gear set used in the Power Wagon.

WSnyder

The carrier is the same for the 3.73 or 4.10 gear sets. The 4.10 gear set makes up the difference in thickness of the ring gear. The issue I believe is the housing clearance for the electromagnet and not the ring gear or gear mounting flange.

Dan Marino

Housing clearance is the main issue because of the eloctromagnet adding to the total width of diff.

gus's 03

corect, therer is no case break in the 9.25 aam axle as you had posted. ie: 3.73 and 4.56 fit the came carrier. but the diameter og the pinion gear gets smaller the deeper the gear, this causes you to need to move the carrier slightly closer to the pinion centerline. the oposite is true on taller gears, it all moves away from pionion centerline due to the larger pinion head.

as i stated that would explane whu there was more grinding needed than on any install we have done, theye were all 410 and deeper.

as far as useing a factory powerwagon unit, hold tight, soon as i have time ill see if i can get a full wright up done with pictures.