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Finally back on the forum after a couple years. The rig has stayed roughly the same since my last post, just minor tweaks here and there. Mileage is currently at 373,000. My goal for the truck is to make half a million if I can pull it off. Shes an old ugly workhorse at this point, and I need to address the roof basket at some point because it’s got a good amount of rust. So far the only issue with the truck is transmission engagement on super cold days before the truck warms up. And of course it’s still leaking a lot of oil. I figure this summer I’ll look into a transmission rebuild/swap and address the rear main seal at that time. I was motivated to post again because I just picked up a set of Trackmotive CV axles from rock auto that are supposed to be built with extended travel in them. My goal is to use them so I can safely add an additional 1” spacer to the struts and level out the front a bit. My rear sits a higher even with the tools and spare parts because I’m running the heavy Land Rover coils. Before recently I had no idea these types of CVs existed for our trucks. I’ll update the thread with how it works out.

@Lock Glad you found this useful! No ban on posting links. Amayama is a great source for these and many other parts that are difficult to acquire or not available here. In fact, I actually have two open orders with them right now. I have purchased clutch pieces from them in the past, though at some point the supply was exhausted, particularly for the thicker pieces. Looks like there are many in the UAE at higher/normal costs, but it's the less expensive supply from Japan that was always questionable or long lead times. As for the ramp-angle LSDs, those were in Patrols. There's not really as much of a difference between those styles and these in terms of functionality, though. The spider gears in ours will apply outward force on the side gears to compress the clutch pack, because the clutch pack rests directly on the side gear. In the Patrol units, the clutch pack rests entirely on those inner housings, which compress the pack when the cross-shaft ramps up on them, which means the side gears might not exert significantly on the housing (or it's a combination of both). In both cases, there's varying outward force when differential action occurs. Might also be the case where less, but bigger, clutch pieces has about as much friction as more, but smaller, clutch pieces. Speculation in the absence of factory specs and dimensions. That all said, I'd surely rather have the Patrol units because of the beef factor they add, but I'd be curious to know if it's a drastically better solution that what we have available. Just another thing I wish they'd have here.

Installed a TRE eLocker over the weekend for a buddy's Frontier. Installed no differently than an air locker, and unit seems decently built. Let's get started... TRE has 3 locker styles available; 2 air, 1 electric. This unit is the 31-spline TE136 eLocker (33-spline is TE135). As such, no air lines or accessories are needed for operation. Major selling point is that these lockers run close to $700-$750 USD, which is a steal. Even the air lockers (there's a ARB-clone TR136/TR135 and a "crab" locker TC136/TC135) are in the same price range, and they even include an air compressor I believe (another ARB-clone). They even have front R200A air (TR202) and eLocker (TE202) options. Considering ARBs are now near $1200, TJMs are basically NLA, Harrop doesn't want to sell lockers, Blokkas are practically unobtainable due to a bull$hit war, and no one seems to trust Lokka any more...well, this is a pretty clear-cut winner for the price and availability. I'm not a spokesperson for these guys, but this is a great entry point for lockers. The kit includes full wiring loom, switches, locker unit, bearings, thrust block, stationary bracket, bulkhead fitting, and other accessories. The pic below is incomplete because my buddy just dropped off the locker essentials for me to install into a 3rd member, but kept the wiring to pre-install that into the truck. Initial impressions were good. The interior packaging could have used some improvement, as some pieces of thin MDF chipped off and put crud all over the unit. The bag was a little shredded, but not terrible. The unit itself looked pretty good overall. There was a scratch and some flap-disc cleanup in one particular area. Operating function is pretty simple. There's an electromagnet on the end that remains stationary to the 3rd member housing while the differential is spinning. When the magnet is off, two "ramping" collars mate together, like so: When the electromagnet is energized, the ramping collar closest the magnet sticks to it, while the other collar (fixed to the differential housing) ramps away from it: When it lower collar ramps away, it pushes 4 pins outward, which engage a gear onto one of the side gears (shown later), which locks it to the differential housing and creates the locking action. Two notable things here that differentiate this eLocker from an air locker are: Even though the electromagnet is energized, the collar that sticks to it will eventually still rotate, but it remains locked. The magnet itself does not lock anything to it, but does create enough addition friction to hold the collar to some degree. This does also mean that there's additional friction when the carrier is rotating, unlike an air locker which does not introduce any new friction. The ramping design means that it will lock in forward or reverse, but that it will unlock if transitioning between. That is, the locker will lock-unlock-lock if the truck rolls a little, whereas an air locker remains locked 100%. Now, in my Harrop post it was discussed this operation could be problematic if gassing it from a rollback, but seeing this design I'm much less concerned. I believe it was the "pin type" lockers that would be more problematic than this "collar type" locker. Carrying on... The overall machining quality seems fine. Cover off, some oil and packing material crud inside. Return spring: In the unlocked position, this ring gear is recessed into the housing, allowing the side gear to spin freely like an open diff: When engaged, the ring gear is pushed outward to lock the side gear to the housing: Here's a pin head engaged out a little: The pins just slip into place, visible from the outside of the carrier:

Side gear: The outer teeth are what engage the locking ring. The inner teeth engage the spider gears. If your application uses a thrust block (R50s don't), it gets inserted inside: Alright, so fast forward...getting it into the 3rd member housing is no different than any other LSD/locker install. Only notable for this that the RH bearing cap just needs a little filing or grinding to take off any high points for the bracket that holds the electromagnet stationary. The bracket is compact enough that grinding might not be necessary, but it's easy to do. (My TJM bracket is larger and definitely required grinding the bearing cap.) You can see how it has a slot for the peg on the electromagnet to keep it from spinning. The cable is a little too close to the bracket in my opinion, but once it's routed through the bulkhead, it's not in contact with it. Didn't get any close-up pics of the bulkhead fitting, but it's nothing special. Drill a 10.5mm hole, tap to M12x1.25. The cable comes without the harness installed for routing, and the bulkhead has an or-ring and fluid-tight compression jacket. Once routed, you just slip the pins into the connector. Pin order doesn't matter. All done!

After getting the rear bumper finally ready for finishing, I decided that I was going to put some enamel colors onto the AZ flag and Nissan logos, and then bed lined around things. The enamel process was a bigger PITA than I had planned on (I hate painting), but I think the results turned out well*. (*=great considering my hatred of painting, despite not being pleased with the bedliner color.) I used tintable bed liner from Custom Shop on Amazon. The color is supposed to be Battleship Dark Gray, but I'd argue it is neither dark nor gray. I've complained to a few buddies that I don't like the color, but it does offer some degree of contrast that I was looking for. I still need to spray the sliders, and that will be a couple weeks out given my schedule, but I'll find out if that completes the "look". If I don't like it (and chances are that I won't), I'll probably pull everything back off for some spray paint (ugh) and get it closer to the dark gray I was hoping for. The bedliner product itself I'm pleased with; nice texture, hard, smooth, but provides grip without feeling rough. The Custom Shop stuff is the same as the U-Pol Raptor product. It was a mess spraying on the side of my house...I spent a day building a rack to hang all gear from, plus a few hours converting my HF easy-up canopy into a spray booth. Mostly successful, but I hated every minute of it. The front bumper got sprayed, too, and I finally got around to mounting the IPFs graciously donated to the cause by @Jax99. I have yet to wire them up, though...trying to find a decent switch for the left-hand panels, as the Carling rockers interfere with the dash a little. I thought I'd have some luck with a Toyota-sized aftermarket switch, but will go a different route.

Time for an overdue update... A few weeks ago, I finally got around to pulling everything (bumpers, tire carrier, sliders, skids) off the truck for some finishing. For the rear bumper, that meant getting some plate on the bumper, and grinding off the rust "patina", priming, then spraying bedliner on everything. The center piece ended up being the first attempt to cut a piece on the plasma table that was longer than table itself. Did it in two half-passes and it actually turned out well...tiny offset, but fine for this use. Put the finger brake bender to use to get the contours matched, Not shown in the pic is a 1" square tube that runs between the brackets and supports the long flat part. Plate was 1/8". I also added 1/4" brackets to the bumper wings that attach behind the wheel well. I thought about making some sort of notch for Hi-Lift usage, but decided against it. Was pleased with the end result: