165 Differential Lock Disassembly Question

My diff lock lever was stuck when I bought it and only recently after doing some research learned that it is more than likely stuck from non use. I tried penetrating oil and I'm still stuck. My question is, what keeps me from just pulling the four bolts and yanking the cover and lever off? Is it attached underneath in a fashion prohibiting further disassembly? Are there parts behind in there that are going to come flying out or am I safe to pull it off and put some heat on it and perhaps add a grease zerk? Thanks for your help.
 
The workshop manual says to disassemble by removing wheel and fender, then axle trumpet and turn trumpet until diff lock is uppermost. Remove the four bolts then punch the pin holding the lock shifter fork.

I have looked it up because I also have to do that job. I am wondering if I can do it without undoing and turning the axle trumpet ?
 
I'm not sure what would keep me from just pulling the four bolts on the lever housing and pulling the assembly off or at least far enough off to get at whatever is still holding it together. Has anyone done this?
 
My diff lock was really sticky when I bought my 165. I sprayed the linkage where it enters the rear end with PB Blaster for days. It finally freed up. After some use, it works fine now.
 
You can remove those four bolts and remove the pedal housing but that won't help your cause much. The real problem lies much deeper inside. The shaft that engages the lock is probably frozen much farther inside the housing than what you will have access to by removing the cover. I unstuck mine when I replaced my brakes. I still had a hard time getting it freed up even though I had the axle trumpet housing completely off. It took quite a bit of hammering to get it loose again.
 
I pulled the housing off. The lever was definitely stuck in the housing but the diff lock shaft also seems to be stuck in the axle housing itself. Now I need to see if I can manage to free that up without disassembling the whole thing. Thanks for the replies.
 
We had one like yours. We put 6 inch wood block under the right wheel to have the tractor slight leaning to the left to permit WD-40 to follow the actuator shaft to inside mechanism. We sprayed a little quantity of WD-40 every day for two weeks then it worked properly. The fact that the WD-40 and rust dropped in differential oil we changed oil and it works OK now.

My 2¢


Joe Ferguson
 
I'll be sure to update this when I get it fixed and tell you what worked and what didn't. I'm going to try hitting it with PB twice a day for now.
 
It's fixed!!! It really wasn't that hard. I pulled off the lever assembly/housing which came off with just the four bolts. I pulled the foot lever off the shaft going into the housing. Then I used a cutting torch and put some heat around the shaft and just kept working the lever back and forth with vise grips. I also put some wax on it which I've used many times in the past and had excellent luck with. The wax gets drawn down in by the heat and won't dissipate like penetrating oils on the hot surfaces. I also don't have to worry about the quenching affect of the metal like I would when shooting oils on them. After about five minutes I had that completely freed up. The shaft inside the axle housing was also rusted tight so I hit that with some PB several times a day for two days. I had clearance below my fender to get an air chisel in there and catch the cutaway lip of the shaft. I kept it pressed tight and used a dull tip so it didn't damage the surface. I hammered it on the end and sides for about 5 minutes until I could see the oil seeping in between the shaft and housing. The chisel acts just like an impact wrench and hammered the thing until it broke free. I then worked it back and forth until the return spring was working correctly. Once done, I coated everything in grease and reassembled it. The best thing I did was to use the air chisel. I picked mine up for around $40 and have used this handy little device for many other applications just like this. It's amazing when it comes to breaking frozen parts free.
 

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