E Locker not engaging - Advanced troubleshooting? NOW WITH SOLUTION

‘11 TRD OR.

Rear E Locker stopped engaging recently. Noticed it would engage and randomly disengage while using or it would be hard to disengage.

Did all the basic stuff. Relay under the dash makes noise. Light just blinks. Drove in circles, figure 8s, ect.

Unbolted it from the diff, cycle the button and the actuator motor spins & light stays solid. Depress the button, spins the other way and light goes off.

You can physically slide the gear bar in the diff to manually lock & unlock it. It meshes super easy without any binding.

Realigned everything and slap it back together, locker doesn’t engage.

Seems the actuator motor is binding on the gear bar when everything is back together.

The only thing I haven’t tried was realigning the actuator gear per the Toyota FSM or rebuilding the actuator.

Any suggestions before I start tearing into the actuator itself?



Thanks.

 

The actuator looks to be the same.
https://www.yotamasters.com/shop/di...ential-lock-actuator-1996-2015-tacoma-8-rear/

 

Do you have the timing lined up right? Is the motor assembly bolted up flat against the diff housing without issue? Are you sure when you engage it manually it’s actually locking up and not something screwed up with the diff shift fork itself?

 

One thing you can also try is to engage it electrically and drive around to see if it locks in, the leave the switch on and unbolt to verify if the actuator moved the shift fork. If it did, that’s verification that the actuator isn’t the problem and something is broken in the differential.

 

Timing should be correct, unless it can somehow “jump” while it’s all bolted together. I need to double check this though.


Motor bolts flat without issue.


Slide gear moves freely. Manually engaging it, the diff locks, both wheels spin together. Manually disengaging it, it disconnects, both wheels spin separately. Seems no issue with the fork.


I spent about 30 minutes today trying to get it to engage with zero luck.

 

Could be the motor is weak and not spinning under “load”. Test to try and see what I posted above and see the position of the shift fork after you’ve tried to engage it.

 

Lastly, make sure you are re-installing correctly. A slight CCW rotation is needed to ensure the rack on the actuator pinion are properly meshed and timed. Need to move rack to the unlocked position, and make sure actuator is in the unlocked position, when reassembling.

 

I’ll pull it and double check the timing

 

Welp.

Went to fuck with it tonight.

Unbolted it from the axle, attempted to cycle the motor, I wont even cycle now. It cycled no problem the last time I had it apart a month or so ago.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking….

















The actuator is shot. The housing is corroded and cracked.

I went through and cleaned it up, aligned the gear, and put it back together just to see what would happen. It cycled once and stopped working.

New one is on its way.

 

UPDATE -

Solution -

When your actuator looks like mine, replace it.


Replaced the actuator, it is functional again.


Replaced with part -

$311 AISIN SAT-008 OEM Differential Lock Actuator - Compatible with Select Toyota Tacoma; REAR

AISIN SAT-008

Roughly 400$ shipped on Amazon.

 

Thanks for circling back on the fix!

 

I have the same issue - original actuator is rotted. I just received the new one from Aisin and plan on doing this job within the next few weeks.