4wd required monthly maintenance

Where I live, there is a straight road with a couple small roundabouts that stretch about 7 miles. Whenever I take that road, I keep telling myself I'd put it into 4HI but I always forget

 

Was moving a trailer the other day, from asphalt to grass, in 4hi. The truck let me know when my turn radius on asphalt was getting a bit too tight. Truck slowed down during the turn w/o me reducing throttle input. This told me I needed to increase turn radius and apply a bit less throttle. No issues and once I got fully onto the grass, the 4WD traction was nice to have...

 

Those Facebook groups are full of a bunch of idiots, I've come to notice.

Throw it in 4wd on pavement, just don't make any sharp turns. Find the straightest stretch of road around you and exercise it there every now and then and you should be good.

As others have said, you can go as fast as you want (not that it's necessarily recommended to go crazy fast in 4wd...), it's just the engagement of 4wd you want to be under the specified speed in the manual.

 

My wife needed to drive the truck to work for a week once while I was away, and she must have accidentally put it into 4hi without realizing while turning knobs to try to turn the headlights on in the dark. She didn't know it was in 4wd and drove it like that all week on dry pavement. When I got home she said "something's wrong with your truck... it bucks and shakes when I pull it into a parking spot. It has been doing that all week..." It was fine. Never had any issue with it after that. If my wife couldn't break it I'm sure driving it a few miles on straight roads is once a month fine haha!

 

Yeah, But did you originally think that it was fine? I can’t imagine how you must’ve felt when you found out!

 

Ha! Yeah I was a little concerned but the tires were fine, everything worked and engaged as designed. A few years later I changed the transfer case and diff fluid and the fluid looked fine. I just figured it was a robust system and could take the beating it took for a week!

 

Wow! very impressive.

 

Didn’t you notice that most of the posts in here about grenaded differentials were from guys blaming their ‘s while driving their trucks in 4wd? I don’t buy it though.

 

I have always driven on a straight road for about a mile.

 

Be a good idea to educate the wives then!

 

The CV boots have nothing to do with it.

But yea, a mild bend in the road won't grenade your front diff.

If the truck starts slowing down and bucking during a turn you'll know you're messing up.

 

I don’t buy it though.
I do know one thing, the 4wd maintenance interval is a very good excuse to get out to play more often!

 

Did you have the driveshaft U joints greased recently? After greasing them, they will fling grease on everything for a while. I can't remember if it hits the exhaust, but it probably does. Makes a mess no matter how well I try to wipe out excess grease with a rag.

 

I just greased my Zirk fittings two days ago! On the front shaft. That’s the only one that had fittings. You sure knocked that diagnosis out of the park! Thank you

 

I usually floss the U joint with a rag after greasing it, but it's still hard to get all the extra grease out. I'm glad there's a simple explanation.

 

Yeah, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Back you joint is right next to the exhaust. I had to remove the heat shield to get to it better. this makes perfect sense.

 

That someone would even consider choosing a FB page over the Owner's Manual.........

 

This was your drivetrain binding. If you push it things can break.

 

Agree 100%. That is why I backed off on the turn radius and power...

 

Out here Tucker - the big brown dog - and I often go for rides at the end of the day to just, well, see what's out there.
Sunny, rain, snow, whatever.
There're places out in these parts where I can go straight for quite a few miles on pavement and sometimes, depending on the direction of course, even into the next county.
If I take the gravel roads, which I nearly always do, I can drive straight as a stick for 10 miles and be in another state.
But then living out here means I exercise my 4x bits and pieces fairly often.
As always, another interesting thread...at least for a simple guy like me...here on Tacoma World.
Happy Motorin' to all.