Who can tell me how this works? Thanks

On snow and ice and slick mud your right it makes little differance sometimes but it wont hurt to try. But if you drop a single wheel in a hole or get on a curb and hang one in the air it will get you out.

 

You got it right. Most drivers have no idea how it works and many ive talked to dont even now what it is. Iv seen drivers stuck in a pot hole spining one wheel and then the wrecker shows up to pull them out. All they needed to do was lock in and out they would come. Instead they(or their company) pay a big tow bill because they never were tought what its for. I think a lot of drivers think it only drives the rear axle untill its locked because the rear dose have a tendence to spin out more. The reason this happens is the front axle carries more weight than the rear when empty or bobtailing. Power will always flow to the point of least restance. I was tought in trucking school( many many years ago ) that the front did all the work till the divider is locked. They were wrong too. Its hard to explain that all 4 corners get power applied to them all the time and they see one wheel spin out.
Ive been trying to think off a better way to discribe in words how a power divider lock works. This is what i cam up with. Picture 4 wheel barrows loaded with dirt. Two side by side in front.Two side by side in the rear. Four people pushing with 100lbs of equal force. Three have a block in front of the wheel. Let say both rears and the right front. The left frort has no block. The block represent traction. With no block (traction) the left front would move and the rest won't. This would be the point of least resistance. How ever all 4 hand the same amout of force applied. When the divider is locked it eliminates the point of least resistance (attaching the rolling wheel barrow to the one that is up againt the block(traction).Now it will pull the others over the blocks and your moving. ALL tandem axle power dividers work the same way. Every truck manufacture, axle manufacture work the same way. As said in previous post some Macks and some large OTR companys dont have a lock switch.How ever they still opperate the same way and will spin out the wheel with least restance leaving you stuck spining your wheels. (actualy just one wheel).
Lego1970 you got it figured out. And you right if the road is snow or ice covered lock it in, leave it in. it can only help and wont hurt any thing.

 

I'm not quite sure how Mack trucks or their toughness got into this conversation but I frequently drove as much as 150 miles per day "off road" so I do have considerable first hand experience in burying the drivers up to the hubs.

Mostly in dry sand washes crossing the dirt roads I was driving along.... Without ever engaging the interlock....So I don't think the wheels were just spinning due to a lack of resistance. Other things such as old cattle guards collapsing under the weight of my drivers ... that'll scare the pee right out of ya if you're not expecting it.

Trucks were run of the mill stuff, KW's & Petes and not being all that interested in the mechanics, I have no idea what brand of axles were under them.

 

Got one of the best laughs for a long time reading through these posts! Now I know why you are immediately stuck when there's 1 or 2 flakes of snow on the road surface. Power goes to that tyre that is spinning... Yeah right..

 

if the tire is spinning---i would imagine it has power going to it---and the least traction

 

I don't really know what your point was...lol. Maybe I missed it?