Horsepower is nothing without traction, which is why many Nissan Titan, Frontier and Xterra owners have been waiting for a new locker option. The M226 is a variant of the Dana 44 and buying your truck from Nissan fitted with the e-locker has been the only way to get a manually activated locker. If you have been in search of a locker for your Titan, Xterra or Frontier, you may be in luck. The Xterras and Frontiers with the Off-Road package came with an e-locked M226 rear end. Those with a manual transmission also have the M226 rear end, but it's has nothing but an open carrier.
A few weeks ago I got a call from ARB's marketing department letting me know about their new M226 air locker, one of which was flown in early from Australia and they wanted to know if Rugged Rocks Off Road would be willing to help them out with the first M226 Locker install in North America and let them know how it goes making note of anything special that had to be done. Of course I jumped on this opportunity right away. Being that I didn't have an Xterra myself to do this install on, I extended this opportunity and called Jesse Feng, an owner of an '05 Xterra S 4x4. I met Jesse through the Rugged Rocks forum, he had been wheeling with a few of the other guys on the forum and judging by the pictures he had posted of his rig on the trail along with the body damage, a bashed in muffler, scuffed up sliders, dented rear bumper, scraped up rear diff, bent trailer hitch and scarred up leaf shackles; I decided that lack of traction was the only thing holding this guy back on the trail and could really benefit from the new ARB M226 Air Locker.
We arranged to get the locker installed by Scott, the owner of Sterling Autosport in Murrieta, CA. Scott is a seasoned wheeler that has been setting up gears and ARB air lockers for quite some time. I figured he wouldn't have any trouble getting this new locker installed into Jesse's '05 Xterra.
 Once we arrived Scott had...  Once we arrived Scott had the Xterra on the lift in the shop with the wheels off and was pulling the diff cover in no time. After draining all the diff oil we quickly realized that the spider gears were pretty hammered and worn which was a shock being that there is only 37K miles on this truck. |  Once the oil was drained,...  Once the oil was drained, the 4 nuts holding each axle in was removed, and the axle shafts were pulled out. |  The bearing caps were then...  The bearing caps were then unbolted and the carrier was removed giving us first look at the unexpectedly large pinion gear. |