Originally Posted by Danny Lee 97 Disco

Do you have any oil laying around? You could take a large zip lock baggie, place the entire assembly in the bag and pour a liberal amount of any kind of oil on it and let it soak for a few days.

All the surfaces probably have a pretty fair amount of corrosion particulates that significantly increase the surface tension and increse the friuction between the mating surfaces significantly. That is what has it basically immobile.

To get it to move at all, you have to apply enough force to overcome that surface friction. The amount of force required to move it can be significantly reduced by the liberal application of lubricant. It could be PB Blaster, WD40, old motor oil, any opened container of oil that you may not want to put in an engine, cooking oil, or any other such oil. The viscosity is really insignificant, you just want to penetrate the layers of corrsion that still linger after your degreasing. So lube it up good, handle it with finesse instead of beating the hell out of it.

That the physics side of it to a microscopic or molecular level. The laws of physics still apply. It should free up. Mine had some pieces that did have visible physical wear and I replaced the majority of the small clips, pins and the pawl with the internal splines due to visible wear.

All that linkage does is transmit the motion down to the selector plate at the bottom of the unit where that u-shaped piuece attaches. Rotation of the selector plate engages the diff lock.

The unit is exposed to all the road grime so lubing it good upon getting it to move is the key to keeping it in working order. That and frequent movement of the linkages will help keep it from freezing up again.