All 4 Spinning

[Xceslimitd]

I read some of the other threads and stuff and I'm a little baffled. As I understand it, the only time all 4 wheels will spin at the same is if you have a locker in the front and one in the rear, and possibly one in the transfer case. I ask because from what I understand there is no locker currently available for the Explorer front end. To get to the point, my buddy totaled his jeep this last weekend out in the desert and we went out last night to tow it to the road. Well, we were going pretty good till we hit a nice 1 mile run of nice soft sand. Anyways, got to a point (buried her to the undercarriage) but all for tires were spinning at the same time. I was in first gear and in 4low. I didn't think that was possible without lockers. Can anyone explain????

 

[Byrd91]

You had equal traction on both the left and right tire, so the differential split the torque equally between the tires. The traction probably wasn't exactly equal, but close enough that the momentum of the tires and drivetrain balanced it out a little or something. I believe you are right about a front locker not being available.

 

[Robert]

What Byrd91 said was correct. If one of your spinning tires would have suddenly caught traction, it would have stopped spinning and your tire with lesser traction would have went on spinning. When your traction is very close to equal from left to right, the differential will split the torque equally among the wheels. That is why all four tires were spinning. I've high-centered a Toyota on a sand dune before and watched helplessly as all four tires spun round and round.

 

[sortsol]

This is probably a stupid question, and totally unrelated, but why did the designers of 4wd make the wheel that doesn't have traction get all the power instead of transfering the power to the wheel with traction so it can pull the wheel with no traction out of the situation. There must be a reason. I just don't know it.

 

[Byrd91]

sortsol,

This is what is happening in most of todays newer electronically controlled 4wd and AWD vehicles. However this technology relies on multiple sensors and a computer to read these sensors and control these sensors. The differential is a simple machine that simply allows the 2 wheels to turn at different speeds, which is good for on pavement but not so good on offroad. In older vehicles that are used offroad you will often times see a locking or locked differential, which keeps both wheels spinning at the same speed all the time, or under power, or with a switch thrown, depending on the type of locker.