Well my buddy got stuck today and I went to go pull him out. I have a 98 Discovery that has never given me any problems. I went to pull him out and come to find out it was a 99 F350 diesel. Awesome. Got it most of the way out and I wound up in some deep snow. I went to back up and was stuck. What the hell. Looked at the truck while I was trying to back up and only my front tires were spinning and the rear tires were doing nothing. I shifted to 4 hi then 4 low twice then the rear tires started spinning again, What the heck? I backed right out and finished pulling that lead weight out of the snow and drove back to the shop. Jacked the truck up and put it in drive. Front and rear tires are spinning. What could be causing me to have this problem as I do not want to get stranded in single digit weather.

 

did you have your transfer case in the locked position?

 

I have high and low. I had it locked in low. PUlled the beast out then I got stuck backing up!! Crazy how only my front tires would spin and both of my back tires wouldn't do anything. Shufted to high and nothing. Shifted to low and the same thing. Shifted to high then low and then all tires started spinning!! Weird.

 

Did you have the CDL engaged? Shifting from High4wd to Low4wd does not lock the transfer case. You have to move the lever to the left to engage the center diff lock(CDL), otherwise you are just a glorified one-wheel-drive vehicle. The CDL locks the center diff making it a true 2wd, one front tire and one back tire. To get more than one tire per axle, you have to install lockers on the axle differentials. A true 4wd vehicle has a locker on each axle and a locker at the t-case.(a locker can be a full locker or auto-locker or lsd)

 

Well crap. Shows how much I know about these things. I was not shifting into locked diff. I went outside and played with it and put it in lock. I can get it in high and low but now it doesn't want to go back to non-locked! Gunna go play with it a little more.

 

By the way. My rear diff seal is starting to seap and when I tera it apart to replace the seals and bearing I am going to install a detroit locker right along with my 2" TerraFirma lift and DuraTrac tires! So sick of the snow!

 

Dude it's like this

LL.---LO
l. l
N- N -N
l. l
HL---HO

 

You basically had 1wd

 

When unlocked the power always follows the path of least resistance.
The front wheels had the least resistance so they got the power, and just spun because they had no traction.

 

OMG read the owners manual!!!!!