How to drive for drive-train longevity and fuel efficiency

Treat the throttle like your peter is stuck under it.
Lock in your power divider, when you think you might spin the tires, not after you have already started spinning them.
Lock in your power divider when hooking up to a trailer, sliding axles, or sliding the fifthwheel.
Lube the whole truck every 6500 miles. $35 at Speedco, every 6500 miles, is a lot cheaper than road service replacing your driveshaft and yokes, on the side of the road, in Mina, Nevada.

 

We don't slide axles or fifth wheels, but we do hook to trailers every day sometimes 2-3 times, so why would I wont to lock in power divider when hooking up????
I do drop the bags to get under the trailer easier, but then I drive a day cab and can look out the rear window to make the hookup a lot easier.

 

To divide the torque equally between both axles, especially if the lot is uneven and pot-holed, to keep one axle from spinning. The two major causes of differential failure are shock and spinout. Locking in the power divider helps to prevent these.

 

jockey trucks don't have dual axles to be locking the dividers. they hook and unhook in one day more then we do in a month.

if the trailer is empty. you'll be allright. if the trailer is loaded. you'll be allright. but forget sliding the 5th wheel. best way is to lower the landing gear to the ground then dump the valves. slides really easy.

use the same trick if you get stick in snow and ice over night. the brakes freeze up and the truck don't move. dropping the landing gear and taking the trailer pressure off. you lock in the dividers and make the tires spin on ice. then you've broken up the ice on frozen brakes. lift landing gear and go down the road.

now, if you slide the trailer. then you'll probably want the divider locked in.

and be careful of your speed if you spin out and lock the dividers. i think there's a max speed. you don't want to be over.
i'll keep it under 25. course, if your spinning, 25 is probably too fast also.

 

Don't jerk your truck.
Therefore apply power gradually and also lift off gradually.
I heard somewhere that a trainer would hang a tennis ball an a piece of string about 6 inches in front of the top of the trainee's head.
The trainer would say that if the ball would swing enough to bump your head you were surging to much.

 

Now that's good advice right there, thats the way I've always drove but never heard it put into those words before. ROFLMAO

 

Not all trucks have greaseable u-joints. Mine don't.

Otherwise, just treat the throttle as gentle.

If you really want to learn how.

Put an open glass of water on the dash.


And don't spill it.

 

I used to drive a 6nz cat. Best way to drive an engine like that (for me) was to watch turbo gauge, try to never put it to the max. Only hammer it when you really need to. Doing this I never had any problems in the 300,000 miles and 2.5 years i drove it. It had 1.4M km to 1.9M km when my time with her came to an end. It was BY FAR the best motor I ever drove. If you can keep that turbo PSI down (I used to try to keep it below 10, around 7 or so) while cruising then it is all around easier on engine. Didn't matter what the speed was so long as that turbo gauge was reading that, fuel mileage was consistent.