seadragon

Does anyone remember the olden days when we had to manually lock the hub at each front wheel before heading out? Or driving down a road not remembering if we did or not? LOL.

Cwprotek

I leave it in 4 as long as I need it but when I hit dry pavement I shift. But be sure you don't need it cause RWD sucks. In my last truck I came from snow in what looked to be dry and ended up doing a 360 off the road through the other lane into a lot.

Nothing or Noone was hurt so I collected my nerves and drove on home.

zx12-iowa

Lots of bad info in this thread....

LoneWolfTrucker

The real answer is you are all right. There is nothing wrong with changing on the fly. There is also nothing wrong with running it in 4H in snow even with patches of "dry" pavement. People are way to **** about the dry pavement thing. What the 4x4 OEMs are trying to prevent is people putting it into 4H when they get the truck and leaving it there all the time. Small stretches of dry pavement will have such a small effect that most people won't notice, especially if you normally run in 2wd.

Cwprotek

Yeah. To my knowledge it's only the turning which causes the binding. We have full time 4wd because of ratios.

I had a Dodge Dakota that every time I put it in 4x4 the dash read "part time 4x4" . Looking into why it said that is when it was explained to me.

I still shift when hitting a nice stretch of dry pavement, miles worth.

In the summer I also put it in 4x4 and cut my wheels left and right a few times to keep everything greased and moving up front.

D0T-C0M

I normally shift in and out of 4h and 2H on the fly with no problems but the other day I shifted it from 2H to 4H on a snowy road and when the message indicating that it was switching to 4H had gone away I accelerated normally and felt a large thump coming from my front end. Now when I change on the fly I always tap and release the gas ever so slightly to allow the gear train to mesh properly before actually accelerating.

kmp013

The whole drivetrain is in constant mesh whether you are in 2WD or 4WD, the only thing you have engaging is the transfer case which is either a chain or gear and they are always in mesh just not engaged.

D0T-C0M

Isn't there an actuator on the front axle that engages and disengages when you put it in and out of 4x4? That's what I meant that wasn't engaging. To say that the whole drive train components are all meshing is kinda miss leading because in the transfer case there is a locking device that operates to engage 4wd. My point was simply to be aware that if the drive train is under load these locking mechanisms could possibly not fully engage if you do not remove the load from the drive train.

Trotter

I remember and I still prefer it that way.
Nothing beats a Solid Dana 60 front Axle
2017

zx12-iowa

You are correct. 4x4 going straight even on dry pavement is just fine.