Having ran ARB lockers in my TJ for a number of years, I’ll admit that there are times when having lockers engaged in HI range is useful and sometimes necessary. Anyone that has spent time on the dunes or cinder fields, among other places, would probably agree that having lockers in HI range is a good thing.
If you are a Jeep Rubicon owner, you have most likely discovered that your lockers can only be engaged when the transfer case is in LO range and you are moving at 10 MPH or less. I’ve no doubt that the Jeep engineers did this for a good reason (hopefully safety was the first reason). But none the less, having the lockers available in HI range would be nice.
A friend of mine asked me to assist him in bypassing the locker switch functionality that requires the transfer case to be in LO range. While I helped, I managed to snap a couple of pictures so I could share the information here.
I suppose I should add that this may or may not cause a warranty issue (on a new vehicle) down the road since one is changing the design by doing this. It concerns some folks while others don’t mind. I made the statement…..what you do is up to you.
I did some research on the net and found some information that I could use to help my friend. It looked easy enough to do but since he’s not into wiring projects, he said he would watch and provide moral support.
The cover for the center dash section must be removed. Pry up the defroster grill to expose two screws that hold the dash cover in place. My friend had a dash bar (installed with his Toys by Troy sport bar) that made access a little difficult but we removed both screws none the less.
With the two screws removed at the top of the dash, the cover can be removed from the center dash section. There are two clips in the bottom corners but they are just a friction fit into a couple of holes.
Lift straight out and up just a bit and the cover should come free without too much effort. The lower panel that contains the locker switch must now be removed from the dash.
There are four screws securing the panel to the dash. Remove all four screws using a Phillips head screwdriver.
More Rubi Locker Switch Bypass
Gently slide the panel out of the dash. The white plug with the red circle around it is the one that will be modified. I found it easier to work on it when it was removed from the panel. There is a little clip on the plug….depress it and you can pull the plug ot of the panel.
While there are a couple of different jumper combinations that one can use. My friend wanted to turn his lockers on at any time. To do so, pin 1 (ground) is jumpered to pins 4 and 5 (locker enable signal 1 and 2). Some folks add an extra switch and route the ground wire through it. This allows them to turn the bypass feature on and off as needed. My friend opted to skip the switch as he has no desire to “lock” the bypass in or out by using an extra switch.
Pin 1, the ground connection, has a black wire connected to it. Pin 4 is next to Pin 1 in the other row. Pin 5 is right next to pin 4.
We used a wire tap to make the connection for the bypass. A piece of 16 gauge wire (the yellow wire in the above pic) was first connected to the black wire (Pin 1).
From pin 1, the yellow wire was tapped onto pin 4 (the red/white wire) and then to pin 5 (the violet/dark green wire).
Once you have the three wires connected together, you are done. If you removed the plug from the back of the panel, reconnect it. Put the panel back into the dash and reinstall the cover over the dash section. You are done!
Good trails and remember to TREADLightly!
Update: 09/25/2006
I helped another friend do this same modification today. Pin 1, the ground wire, was black. The other two pins were NOT the same colors as I mentioned in my write-up. Obviously, DC has changed the wiring colors over time. The good news is that we ignored the wire colors and connected the pins based on pin number….and it functioned the same as the one I previously modified.