THE PORTAL HUB - Pinzgauers, Haflingers, Volvo 303s and more!

Hi there


I understand that the C303 has lockers front and rear, can these be adapted to run like a compressor style ARB locker ?

How do the vaccum lockers work exactly ?

Cheers

Mick

They need vacuum to release the lockers,not air pressure.
Mark

Hello

If you dig, there was a guy who made a actuator that operated on pressure instead of the vaccum, but I don't know if he intended to sell them. Also, the unit stuck up from the housing a couple of inches and had two lines. Maybe you could find an electric actuator. Bernard said he found an actuator that would work for the Pinzgauer, so maybe there could be something useful with some ceativity.

Pringle

The stock lockers work perfectly. Why redesign the wheel?

Hello

I think the guy's complaint was that from an idle, the vacuum was not enough to engage the lockers. I agree to leave well enough alone, but the heart wants what it wants and there is no stopping creativity (needed or not).

Pringle

In that case, there may be a leak somewhere. In over 7 years of 303 ownership, I never had a locker issue (or any other issue, funny enough)

The heart does like to decrease reliability, doesn't it? Why, we will never know...

The stock lockers work perfectly. Why redesign the wheel?

The only reason i posed the question about the ARB style air lockers, was that i have been told that there could be one tank which may be cracked, as it's not holding vacuum. I have two really good air compressors and was going to use one if it was possible.

I'll have to see if i can get it welded (as advised by vince in one of the previous replys).

Cheers

Mick

Michael
My rear vac tank was cracked along the chasis weld. A boiler maker friend soon welded it up, fixed the problem and also stiffened up the chasis again. Then found the rubber hoses were badly perished, renewed them, now the lockers work perfectly. I unhooked the hoses at the diffs and plugged them and then pressurised the lines to find all the leaky lines, 30+ year old rubber was not good.
If you are worried about the vac tank cracking again, install a seperate tank bolted to the chasis and connect the hoses to it.
It is a unique sound hearing the pssshh as the vacum is released on disengaging the diffs.
regards
Bruce

my locker rubber seals died so we used air actuators on the vaccum tank and redid all the hoses and it works fine. We had to change the factoory dash switches to air actuators also i will find brands etc tomorrow when i collecct volvo.

also at idle cannot come out of lockers yoou must rev up to generate vaccum..

Same for 4WD switch

My understanding of the lockers are they engage by the vacuum acting on the rubber diaphram, which pulls the linkage up and the locking dog moves towards the side gear.
When switching the lockers off the vacuum is shut off at the switch in the cab and atmosheric pressure pushes the rubber diaphram back down with some assistance from the return spring above the diaphram.
New diaphrams can be bought from the UK and the seals in the switches can be replaced with a simple o-ring.

Eric