Thread: The Ashcroft Locker

Originally Posted by uninformed

hi Dave and Ian,

just wondering if you have any updates on the Sals Ashcroft locker and the p38/110 rear diff mods/upgrades?

cheers,
Serg

Don't know how large a company Ashcroft are,but they currently have so many projects on the go that the sals locker is probably a long way off still.

The Sals doesn't appear to be a popular fitment among serious offroaders in the UK their bread and butter market.(read low priority development)
Bill.

Originally Posted by isuzutoo-eh

I don't make very good ginger beer but have a friend with a moderate tool shop...

I'll see if I can borrow a Salisbury carrier sometime to measure and make a drawing of the conversion. But maybe a reasonably detailed description will suffice and save me the trouble? To make sense of the following description it would be easier to have a dismantled Salisbury carrier to refer to.

The most intricate part to make was the pneumatic hollow piston cylinder that fitted inside the axle tube, concentric with the half shaft.

For 24 spline axles a McNamara splined cross shaft was used.For 101 pattern or 35 spline axles the existing cross shaft was annealed, brooched and rehardened.
One halfshaft (any side)was shortened half an inch, to allow for a short splined stub shaft that rides inside the splined cross shaft to be pushed into the side gear, thereby locking the gear to the carrier. The other end of the splined stub shaft is drilled and tapped, so that a large hardened washer is fastened to it with a countersunk unbrako bolt.This washer pushes against 2 coil return springs(series LR gearbox detent springs) that sit inside pockets drilled into the cross shaft junction.These springs unlock the diff once air pressure is released.
The opposite sidegear has 3 holes drilled through it, concentic to the axle splines, into which 3 hardened pushrods(Ramset nails) are fitted.The pushrods bear against the washer on the splined stubshaft. A thin walled flanged sleeve that is a sliding fit inside the carrier bearing journal bears against the pushrods.When fitted up,the end of another thin walled sleeve, a 6mm length of which rests inside the end of the carrier bearing journal, transmits the thrust from the concentric pneumatic piston.
The cavity behind the side gear spigot in the carrier needs to be cleaned up and clearanced to make space for the pushrod sleeve to do its job, and the return spring side of the crosshaft junction needs to be narrowed, and the inner side of the sidegear faced back enough so that the thrust washer can move the half inch required to fully engage the difflock.
The cross sectional area of all the splines x half inch long exceeds the cross sectional area of the shaft, so stripping the splines is unlikely and never happened on the handfull of 101s that were converted way back then.
The pneumatic cylinder was a neat push fit inside the axle tube and was simply held in position by the brass airline fitting through a hole drilled into the axle tube concentric with one of the diff spreader tool locating holes.
Bill.