Length: 26:26
Created: July 20, 2018
Hey guys, Braden here at SuperATV. Today we’re going to install the SuperATV Pin Locker Differential on the Can-Am Maverick X3.
When you hit the slop, your four-wheel drive needs to be responsive. One of the problems with the stock Visco-Lok differential in the Can-Am Maverick X3 is that it isn’t a true on-demand system. Whenever your tires start to spin, it can take up to one full tire rotation for your clutch pack to lock your diff. This means lost momentum and possible slippage.
SuperATV’s pin locker differential closes the gap between the Visco-Lok and Can-Am’s new smart lock differential. This easy install can give you total control of your front disc locking action. A rocker switch allows you to easily lock your front differential, avoid obstacles, and maintain your momentum as you bounce through the trail. Our pin locker differential replaces the Visco-Lok part of your diff so you don’t have to change any gears, and you can reuse half of the original housing. Let’s get started.
[00:51] First, remove the driver’s side wheel and tire. Then, remove the two bolts holding the brake caliper on. Remove cotter pin, axle nut, and washer. Then, remove the hub from the spindle.
Now, remove the tie rod from the spindle. Remove your lower spindle bolt and drop the lower A-Arm. Sometimes you need to use a pry bar. Remove your upper ball joint bolt and knock your spindle from the ball joint to remove it. Then, remove your lower shock bolt and hang your shock up out of the way.
Remove your brake line from the A-arm and place your caliper out of the way. Disconnect your sway bar link. Remove the axle by giving it a couple swift pulls. Remove both upper A-Arm mounting bolts and the A-Arm.
Now repeat the same process on the other side, but don’t remove your A-Arms.
[03:38] Remove the drain plug from your differential and let the oil drain. Remove the bolt holding the drive shaft to your differential, and remove the four bolts that secure the differential to the frame. Slide the differential forward and remove the drive shaft from the differential. Now remove the differential from the machine.
Alright, so now that we got the differential out of the machine, let’s go over the components that you are going to receive whenever you receive the box from SuperATV. You get our billet, pin locker lid, rocker switch, wiring harness, four-wheel drive actuator, shim kit, hardware kit, ring gear plate, spline plate, and spline hub.
Mostly for this install you are going to be using basic hand tools, but you are going to be required to set the backlash. For that, we do recommend you use a dial indicator. If you have never used a dial indicator before or you don’t already own one, we recommend you take it to a dealership to have the install done.
[04:57] First, remove the lid. Grab a 12 millimeter socket to remove the bolts. Sometimes, the the lid gets stuck stuck so you have to get a screw driver and wiggle it around to get the cover off.
Second thing you are going to do is remove the shim. Lay that aside. Now, we are going to flip the other half of the differential over. Give it a little hit to get the gear out. Slide the other side of the cover to the side and we will remove all these bolts. Whenever you are doing this leave the last bolt in, otherwise your ring gear is going to fall out and it is sometimes difficult to get it lined back up. Then, use a 4-millimeter to get these screws out of here.
Now that you removed this, get all your bolts out of the way. You’re going start removing the clutches out of here. A screwdriver works great. Work it down in there and they all should pop right up. Take all this and lay it to the side.
Now, install the spline plate. It drops right down in there. Next, install the spline hub. It is very important to line up the countersunk screw holes with the tapped holes. As you can see here, these are going to be tapped. The rest all the way through.
[07:33] Now that you got it all lined up, open up your hardware kit to get the hardware you need. with your ring gear plate on there, start one screw to hold the gear on.
With the one screw started, get your Loctite opened up. Apply some Loctite on every screw before you install it. Now, grab your five millimeter Allen. When you tighten these bolts, tighten across from each other to evenly pull the ring gear up. You don’t want to go in circles.
Now that you have all of those ran up, grab your countersunk screws and put them in here. We will apply just a little bit of Loctite here as well. Now, grab your 4 mm T-handle and run this up. Go ahead and tighten these down tight as you can get them with the T-handle. Be aware that these do have a small thread on them. Now that these two are tight, go back through here and double check all your bolts.
[09:47] Now that these bolts are tightened, flip this over and we’ll talk about shims on the spider gears. We send steel shims with ours, but some machines come with plastic shims. This one in particular came with steel shims, but we’ll show you how to change them anyway.
First, remove the snap ring that’s on one side of the pin. Once you remove the pin, you grab ahold of this top spider gear here and spin it. As you are spinning it, you want to make sure that you grab ahold of the gears as they come to the front. As you’re holding them, reach up here inside of this pocket and you’ll feel the shim. Pull the factory shim out.
Now that the factory shims are removed, you’re going to put your pin locker shims in. Sometimes, it’s easier if you take a little bit of putty or differential oil and wipe it on there to help it stick a little better. Sometimes, you have to take a screwdriver and kind of line them up and hold them in place. With that one started, you can go ahead and get the other side.
Once you get your shims in, continue spinning the upper spider gear and ensure that the shims are lined up with the holes on the spider gears. Once they’re lined up, insert the pin through the hole. Sometimes, you have to work that shim around just to get the pin through. Whenever you put the snap ring on, make sure the pin is fully seated in there. Then, ensure that the snap ring is all the way on there as well.
[13:13] Now it’s time to reinstall the this into the differential. Make sure it is fully seated. You should be able to grab ahold of it and make sure that the shaft is spinning. Grab hold of the shaft make sure it spins. Then, grab your pin locker lid and remove this part out of here while you check the backlash.
Start with the factory shim and then add or remove shims if you need to. Reinstall the cover and make sure it is fully seated. While you’re checking backlash you just need a few screws to hold the lid on there. You don’t have to get them super tight—just enough to hold the lid down. Flip the whole differential over where it’s sitting flat. We have ours hanging off the table.
[14:44] Now, grab your backlash tool. Whenever you are installing a backlash tool, ensure that the set screw is going into the groove, not getting on the splines. It doesn’t need to be too tight—just tight enough to stay on there. Just ensure this is set. There’s a line on your differential that you can reference. As long as the tool is flat, it’s good.
Now, grab your dial indicator. Ensure that the tip of your dial indicator is in the center of that divot. That way, you’ll get an accurate reading. The specs we are going to be looking for are between four thousandths and ten thousandths. Anything above or below that and you are going to need to add or remove a shim. The way we found best to check this is to take a flat-head screwdriver, or anything that’s going to be able to lock in the gear down so it’s not actually spinning, and stick it down here.
You’re going to find out where you’re starting at here. Then, pull it down. And then pull it up the opposite way. So it looks like we are at twelve thousand here. It’s off the spec, so you need to move the dial indicator off, flip the pin locker differential back over, and take the cover off. We’ve found that the easiest way to get the lid off is to clock it a little bit so you can stick your fingers under here and get your thumbs on the actual differential. Then, wiggle it and it’ll come right off.
Your shim, most of the time, will get stuck on your actual lid instead of being where you placed it whenever you started checking your backlash. For our example diff, we are going to leave the factory shim on and add one of the shims included with the kit.
Now we are going to reinstall the lid. So we added a shim because we were out of spec, and now we’re going to check the backlash again and ensure that we’re in the four thousandths to ten thousandths range.
As you see, we’ve added a shim and we’re. We were over spec so adding that shim is going to get our number down. If you were under you would take a shim away. So we’ll put the dial indicator up here and see what we get it down to. We are going to work back and forth until it stops. Alright, so it looks like we are at seven thousandths. That is going to be spot-on. That’s perfect. Anything in between that four thousandths and nine thousandths is going to be good. Anything over and you are going to have to adjust your shimming by repeating these steps until you’re within that spec range.
Now, flip the diff back over and remove the lid. Again, click it a little bit, put your thumb’s on the actual differential, and pop it right off there. This time our shims stayed on there, just make sure that they’re still on there. Remove them and lay them right on the center of the bearing on our lid.
[19:19] Go back and reinstall this. All you have to do is push up on the bottom of where the actuator goes. The spring is going to lift that up. Slide it right in the groove. You can feel when it seats down in there. Now, set this aside for just one second.
We’re going to go ahead and remove the ring gear assembly. The easiest way to do that is stick your finger right here in this splines, grab ahold of it with your right hand, and beat it down. Ensure that you are holding on to the ring gear assembly. You don’t want to drop it and chip a tooth. Now, lay that out of the way.
Now, this is where the springs are going to come into play. On the ring here, we have little indentions. Sit all four springs down in there in each indention. We’ve found that it is easiest if you can get the flat. Then, flip the ring gear assembly over and set it on there. Each spring is going to have its own hole. The deep holes are where the pins go in, and the shallower holes are where the springs go.
Now, it’s a good idea to take a little pick and go through to make sure that all these springs are seated properly. Sometimes they can get a little jammed in there. You want them seated properly.
So we checked all those and all the springs are good. Take the other side of the differential and line the two closest holes up with the two closest on the lid. Set it right down on there and wiggle it. Then you’re good to go. Make sure you are holding it together when you flip it over.
[21:56] Now, reinstall all the cover bolts. It’s okay to use an impact to run them down but don’t tighten them with an impact. Instead, grab a ratchet to check them all. Alright, all the lid bolts installed tight. Let’s get back over to the machine.
Place the pin locker differential back into the machine and slide your drive shaft on. Install your four bolts securing the differential and tighten them. Then, Reinstall your drain plug. Next, reinstall your bolts securing your driveshaft to your differential and tighten them. Install the vent tube on the differential and secure it with a zip tie. Grab your provided actuator from SuperATV and install it into the differential and tighten it.
Remove your passenger side seat and interior panels to gain access to the power block. Run your provided wiring harness through the firewall and plug into the actuator. Pull the other end of the wiring harness back to the power block and connect the black wire to the ground post and the orange wire to the key-on post. Now, remove the plastic cover under the dash by removing two Torx bit screws and two pushpins.
Grab the wire that has a switch connection on it, locate where you want to put the switch on your dash, and run the wire out to that location to connect your switch and place into the holder.
Now it is time to button your machine back up. Reinstall all the parts you have removed in the opposite order they were taken off and enjoy your new locking differential on your Can-Am Maverick X3.
That’s all there is to it, and now you have an awesome on-demand differential lock on your UTV. Anticipate obstacles and lock your differential at the flip of a switch. No more loss of momentum and your buddies will be wondering why they can’t keep up.
Thanks for watching guys, be sure to call us at (855)-743-3427 if you need any more help and check out SuperATV, LLC for more awesome products and instructional videos.
