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Rubicon Locker: Fact or Myth
- Thread starter AndyG
- Start date
If he is does that makes Andy........Gomer Pyle
Wait until he puts on the eye patch…
OP
Has any one actually seen or experienced damaged rear Rubicon Lsd gears first hand?
WELL ........... I had a friend who said his friend had a friend who's friend said he spun a tire one time and his whole rear end exploded because it wasn't locked
I'm in the process of trying to find out if it was in fact his rear end or the Jeeps ! 
OP
Was it a pretty extreme situation- like Johnson Valley- Were they beating on it pretty hard
I knew if anybody had you probably had-
I’m just trying to get a feel for what the vehicle can handle unlocked -
Kind of good to know the limits before you start trying to find ‘em...
I didn't see either breakage actually happen, I just saw the broken locker's LSD parts later. The first one I saw was in Blaine's shop.
OP
I’m sure it happens - and if you look, especially in his word- carnage is pretty common
I’m just thinking as far as the regular user if it was a big liability we would see a large failure rate
I’m not saying it’s not anything to be concerned about- I’m just trying to gauge the level of concern people have
Sometimes people take a few extreme catastrophic failures and they blanket rule that every vehicle is going to suffer from that-
Now all of this goes back to my original post not really criticizing any conversations we had along the way
Even if it never happened I am already convinced modifying the locker switches is fantastic
I remember reading a post some time last year that someone's rear locker had taken a crap. I did the locker bypass last year and pretty much lock my rear locker anytime I'm off pavement, two wheel drive or 4wheel drive.
WELL i heard John Deere builds bad engine that if you use them for anything but putting around the garden they blow up !!!!!! Anything can be broken if you try hard enough !
OP
I’m thinking if you look on every four-wheel-drive and truck forum in the world you’re going to find every kind of rear end has failed- for various reasons
I spoke in depth to an owner of a Rubicon who was really concerned about the capability of his rig to endure what he was doing because of some guys they didn’t have Rubicons making a case a Rubicon unlocked in 4 wheel drive was likely to fail.
That seems sort of a case of “well mines better because ...”
Just like when we tell our wife how gay some handsome guy is....
Also locker failure is a different story than the limited slip differential and realistically the Japanese made lockers have proven to be consistently durable under the harshest conditions. Are they perfect and indestructible? What is?
My theory is we don't see a huge failure rate of the LSD inside the Rubicon's rear locker because few Rubicon owners actually wheel them. Fewer yet wheel them hard enough for it to be a problem.
OP
Now that is a realistic viewpoint. Not a lot of carnage going on over at Twin Pines Mall....Except to people’s credit cards.
I like to think the Rubicon, even with any inherent weaknesses, is a tough and proven platform- And if you think you’re going to be hard on the vehicle you need to do what you need to improve things where you can-
This is exactly why forums like this and people like you on them are super valuable- You can’t come close to getting accurate TJ advice in my neck of the woods- “ohhhh, long arm it !!” Blah blah....
Most folks confuse locker conversations with “locked in” 4 wheel drive around here. But to be fair, they confuse geneology websites with online matchmaking a lot too.
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I lock my Rubicon in 4 low simply because if I’m in 4 low it means I’m in some tough stuff in the first place. People always tell me my YJ is a POS because it has square headlights. Now my TJ is a POS because it’s a Rubicon. Lets see 05 Rubicon - PCM, OPDA and LSD are all going to fail now.
OP
Exactly and my point is show me one- And really show me a pattern.
I know there are some genuine quirks just like my 2005 Corvette needed a harmonic balancer- the first 11,000 cars were made with defective balancers-
And really what I’m getting at is you have to really step back and look at the number of incidences and production numbers and then you can start to make sense of the data.
But all we have is some random instances and hearsay.
I’ll tell you how you can tell when there is a known- it is really known.
My friend Mike's rear Rubicon locker failed when his Rubicon was only 3 or 4 years old. He wheeled it once or twice a month and used it as a daily driver. It was back when you could still get TJ Rubicon replacement parts from Mopar. He replaced it with a front locker and last I heard from him the front, non LS, locker in the rear was working great for him.
OP
Yeah , occasional locker failures happen on all brands and systems- but the numbers just aren’t there.
On this thread, questioning if failing to engage them kills the rear lsd, the answers seem to indicate both lockers and lsd fail rarely.
That seems to be the case, at least my rear Rubicon locker is still holding together.
I say we get a test group together. Lets take a group of TJ Rubicons to AOP for a weekend and give them hell without anybody engaging their rear lockers. If we make it through the weekend with no exploded lockers the myth is busted