Yesterday I was winching out a stuck tractor and at first it was just sliding my truck. I put it in 4L and reverse intending to spin the front of the truck down so it'd be a better anchor before I started winching again. Well the front tires never spun, only the rear tires. The rear would spin over and then the truck would lose power and you couldn't get any RPMs until you put it back in park, then back in gear. Once we finally got the tractor out, I went over to a hill and made my truck flex where one of the rear tires would spin. Then locked it in 4L and the frontend started pulling. I tried the same thing in reverse and the front was pulling as well. The only thing I can think of is that when the truck was under that load of me winching and trying to reverse, that the transfer case wasn't able to spin over the front tires and therefore shutoff power.

Has anyone else experience this before? I've never had this happen with any of my previous 4x4 trucks. They've always spun in 4L in reverse when I've needed to spin the truck down to create a better anchor for winching.

 

 

No it was disabled when going into 4L.

 

Sounds like the driveline was in some sort of a bind preventing the transfer case from shifting. TC and advance trac automatically shut off in 4L so it sounds weird that you were losing power though. Maybe the electronics automatically do that if the transfer case shift is never completed though to prevent any kind of damage.

 

It was very weird. I shifted in and out of 4wd multiple times. You could hear it locking in, but never would spin over in reverse under that load. Granted, I had 1,500 pounds of seed and fertilizer in the bed of my truck. The tractor was down the hill from me as I was winching him uphill, therefore trying to back uphill to spin the truck down. So the truck was under a very big load and with a bunch of weight. Once I get my bed unloaded this weekend, I might hood the winch up to a tree on flat ground and try to reverse in 4L to see if the front tires will break loose under someone normal conditions. Other than that, I got nothing.

 

This is a problem with any manufacturer's 4a system. The clutches can only withstand so much torque going through them before they start to slip. Sounds like in low range you found that limit.