During last winter I was near *******, MI and was told to park up on some hard packed snow by my father-in-law. It was about 2' deep hard packed from snowmobiles. I got up just fine, but when I put it in reverse from a stop, I started dropping. Upon watching the spin, I found that in 4HI, only one front and one rear wheel had power. I tried my dealer, who wasn't an expert on the logic of the transmission. When I put in in forward, the opposite wheels turned, which made it all the worse at that point. If all wheels went at the same time, I think that I could have "walked" right out instead of needing to get pulled out. It never occured to me to try 4LO at the time, so I don't have any data on that option.

Anyone out here know how the transmission of a non-LS is supposed to work in this situation?

 

Sounds to me as if you got the open rear, not the limited slip. as for the front that the way it comes, open from factory. You are looking at a big chunk of change to change it also. You could go with ARB lockers which will make all wheels turn with power when you flip the switch then ack normal when power is off. You could add a limited slip to the rear and try that.

 

Thanks for letting me know that it is working as designed. Also, thanks for the extra info that even with the LS option, the front is still the same.

I've talked to some other people who also suggested changing the hubs to "Detroit Lockers". He said older Fords had them at one point. Really worked great, but made diffinite lock-in / lock-out noise when on solid road. I'm not sure if it means that much to me to do that. It just really bugged me to have a 4x4 that only had 2 wheels driving at a time, then my father-in-law pulled me out with his Dakota!

 

My friend had a similar problem in his Jimmy. Taking for granted that he has street tires on a 4X4, he got stuck in some semi-deep snow last year. He would have got out if all 4 wheels would spin, but only one side would at a time. So he tried a trick that is suppost to help Hummers get unstuck, he lightly rode his breaks so all the tires could see from friction and gav it some gas. Sure enough it came out. I also tried this in my dads '92 Grand Marqui and it help. I think it because the LS transfers all the power to the wheels that move easier. Just my $.02.

 

"...Anyone out here know how the transmission of a non-LS is supposed to work in this situation?..."

When in 4WD, your transfer case gearlocks (connects) the front driveshaft with the rear driveshaft such that they both turn at the same time. There is no internal differential in the transfer case to allow the front drive shaft to turn at a different speed than that of the rear driveshaft -- which is good, since it means that the front and rear are getting input to the axle pinion at all times.

Since both your front and rear axles are non-Limited-Slip -- they both contain a differential (set of cross and four 'spider gears') which allows 'differentiation' between the two wheel-ends on each axle (so that you can turn corners without scrubbing one of the wheels on the axle).

So...

...you in essence have a front axle which can slip at least one tire AND a rear axle that can also slip one tire, but the most important thing is that the speed of the front axle's wheels in total (left added to right, quantity divided by two) is exactly the same as that of the rear axle's wheels (left added to right, quantity divided by two) -- and that is only significant in that it means that with a transfer-case differential, one wheel off the ground would bring you to a total halt -- since all of the transmission output spinning would simply be wasted on the one wheel that was off the ground.

If this doesn't make sense, I'll go into more detail.

You typically do not want LS in your front axle, since it would make turns even more difficult than they already are -- due to the resultant tendency to keep both wheels turning at the same speed during turns.

LS is used in the rear axles since the wheel speeds are largely synchronized during the vast majority of operation -- and the "L" in the LS allows for the weight of the vehicle to overcome the "bias" of the clutch assembly in the LS during turns -- yet that bias is sufficient to keep enough torque on the wheel with the least traction to be helpful in most situations.

Did this help?

 

Next time you have that two wheel drive problem with your 4x4, lightly apply the brake. This will make the differential 'think' the tires have equal traction. The tire with the least traction spins which is really the opposite of what you need. Using the brakes will help ballance things out.
If you have a two wheel drive truck, use the parking brake to help you gain traction.

 

PolarisPower500,
Thats a very good tip, and it works well.