Leaderboard

This setup should serve you well! Cool to see you got it all put together. Props to lokka on the 5 month shipping... lol. I think another lokka writeup would be great to have - there's so many details and moving parts, especially if you're coming into this as a novice mechanic.

Update Pt2 Way back in April 2021 I ordered a Lokka and finally received it in December. Due to work killing us slowly with overtime, I just started working with in in June. I wanted to go the route that @PathyDude17went by getting a front 4.636 diff and a rear 4.636 lsd diff to pair with the Lokka. Rear diff I did some homework on NPORA and FSM about choosing and removing the diff, so I set out to the junkyard with tools and found a 2001 Xterra with the orange "LSD oil only" sticker. Door jam said HG46 so I started wrenching. Never bothered checking backlash or runout on the ring gear, but I couldn't see or feel any issues with it. Install went pretty smooth. I of course used a new gasket, and lsd additive. One thing i noticed is that there doesn't seem to be any torque spec for the brake line where it attaches to the drum, so I just went by feel on that. Front diff I found a 2000 QX4 that had the HG46 indicated on the firewall plate so I grabbed it from salvage. Removal is pretty easy if you know how to crack loose the driveshaft nuts and remove cv axles. The front diff, I verified runout and backlash before I started getting too far into the lokka install. Installing the lokka wasn't too awful, it was just time consuming and the printed instructions aren't worded very well. Thankfully Tyler has his install video on YouTube to show us how it's done in normal english with good visuals. I went ahead and ordered the associated items from the links on his YouTube channel and found the punches very handy. I ended up not using most of the oil seals from the parts order because I didn't see any evidence of oil leakage on the donor vehicle and removing the seals was going to be a time consuming pain. I stupidly put my house up for sale on the market while I had my pathfinder on jack stands, oil on the driveway and diff parts on my work bench, so I really had to kick things in gear and get this put back together before people started showing up to check out the home. From what I remember, there were some diff parts that were particularly tough to separate that Tyler didn't have trouble with and a part or two that came off really easy where Tyler had to get creative to remove. I suppose no two diffs are the exact same. I did have to shim mine to get it into tolerance. My gap was too large so I cut up some .005" shim stock with scissors to make some spacers to get the unit in spec. The hardest part about the diff was installing into the subframe, that was definitely a two person job without using a trans jack. With the Lokka in the diff and the diff in the Pathfinder, the unit seemed to perform as expected by turning wheels and driveshaft by hand in the various scenarios. With the humble house being turned into a public showroom, I would have to wait to test it on the trails for a couple weeks while I waited for life to settle for a bit. Results: The HG46 diff set made a noticeable difference in acceleration. Acceleration wise, it felt like i went back to my 31.6" tires from my 32.87" tires When I was rushing to get the Pathfinder put together and moved for house selling, I did notice the LSD stiffness was about 50-60 ft lbs by feel. How I figure that is by having the rear axle on jack stands, tires on, torque wrench set to 100 ftlbs (lug nut specs), I could get about halfway (my super calibrated arms) to 100 ftlbs on the lugnut before the lsd would give in and let the wheel slip. Obviously, i'm measuring a couple inches out by pulling on the lug nuts and not the center of the axle, and the torque wrench angle plays a factor and my arms aren't a measuring device but a weak speculative data point is still a data point. It has only rained once since I swapped diffs so I don't have much wet street experience, but I did take it around the neighborhood when it did rain. wheel slippage didn't occur on gentle driving. I did intentionally stomp the gas for a turn and both tires lit up to my delight. Offroad, the lsd has exceeded my expections. I usually don't dare driving 2wd on Ozarks river rock because I sunk my tacoma pretty good doing that before, but I figured I'd see what the lsd would do. I could feel the rear tires slightly slipping and digging. All it takes is one tire to become the one wheel wonder for a single rotation and you're sunk. The back tires worked in unison and we kept chugging forward. Further on the trail, I kept it in 2wd and cleared some familiar spots that are prone to back wheel spin, but none of that happened. With the star of the project being the Lokka, I drove deeper into the trail to find the tricky stuff. There's a spot where you flex out and 3 wheel it that requires momentum if you're working from bottom to top of trail. Lokka crawled at the slowest possible speeds without issue. I made efforts to climb to rock steps. I had mixed success with that. Video shows the lokka working, but the driver needs more IQ/effort and the tires need less air pressure. Descending trails with lokka is normal unless you stab the throttle while turning, then the lokka lets you know it's there by resisting the steering wheel inputs. Climbing trails with lokka is different because there's times it tells you it's in charge depending on the terrain, steering angle and throttle input. Turning radius can be increase at times with the Lokka. I found that using 2wd is more rewarding with the LSD because it has easy steering, However, the Lokka will let you get the highlight moments of wheeling that you're going to remember the rest of the year. Hopefully after some real estate transactions, I can go back to the trails with 20 psi in the tires and more time to get a better feel. Also, I have tons of detailed photos of the Lokka install, included shim installation. If there isn't one already, anyone want a post with tons of photos for a Lokka install walkthrough?