Diff Lock confusion

hey all,

On a rare night with a bit of time on my hands I drove up to the lammermuir's with a buddy. The road was nice and muddy so I thought I would try the diff lock on the landy I've had for a few months now.

I've had 4x4's before but this is my first Landy and a TD5 90 at that.

The diff lock didn't really seem to engage and there was no clear position. Stopped and in N I slid it over to the right (drivers side) and up and down. it felt like it engaged a bit but then slid back to N again. I tried to the Left and I could get the Diff lock warning light to come on but there was again no clear engagement.

Am i missing something???

diff lock is just pushing lever to the left in any position forward or backwards, jack one front wheel up and put lever across if wheel spins its not in lock and linkage probably needs adjusting ,if wheel locks try switch or wiring

also you edinbugger! all (afaik) of the public roads on the lammermuirs are tarmac.

if you get caught going up over the moors on farm tracks.. well.. the gamekeepers might be having words.

especially since it's nesting season for all the grouse and pheasants up there.

Most likely the transfer gears wer'nt aligned properly, you are talking about two different things

1. Transfer into low range - its always worth 'proving' the lock up once you've initially selected low range by holding the foot brake on and letting the clutch out till it bites, then dip the clutch and pull/push the transmission selector again as your moving off.

My defender would sometimes jump out of low ratio when starting a climb, an instructor on the Landrover experience winching course showed me how to do it and I haven't had a problem since!

2. Engagement of diff lock - the diff won't lock until it's lined up, the diff won't align if there is no variation in wheel speed as you pull forward. once you moved a short way on a loose or undulating surface the diff will then line up and lock, once you see the light give it a bit more of a push to be sure it's fully home. Do not try full throttle until the diff engages or you can damage the diff. When you deselect the diff the reverse happens and the diff will remain locked until a variation in wheel speeds unlocks the diff, I usually just reverse with half a turn of steering and the diff disengages. However on one occasion after a fair bit of rock crawling I had to reverse 50 metres wiggling the steering side to side before it would unlock.

I do all of the above at tick over on my TD5 and usually everything locks up or disengages within a couple of metres.

Thats really useful info - thank you. I am a newbie Td5 owner and firstly could not seem to get the diff lock to stay on, then if on, could not get it off. I was trying to straight tarmac to see if it worked ok - sounds like it probably is so crawling under the car with WD40, waggling here there and everywhere was probably a waste of an hour! Thanks for info