driving with differential locked

With a broken axle, that rear cannot transmit any power to the ground, so you basically running with only 1 powered axle, which isn't as bad. Running 2 good axles locked together with slightly different tire sizes can tear things up. The only issue with running with the power divider locked when you break an axle is that all the load is on 1 axle. As long as you don't bang through the gears and drive it easy, not a real problem. Front drive axles are stronger than rears. Those little pinions, yokes and U-joints don't like to take full power in low gears without its big brother in the front helping.

 

in snow n ice no. on dry pavement it might eventually, if your tires are more worn on one axle than another it will bind up if you have hi traction.

 

I am now in a similar situation. Over time, I have several times accidentally engaged the interaxle diff lock and forgot to unlock. The U-joint on the rear diff eventually went bad broke . I talked to my mechanic who is very good. He owns his own shop, and pretty much has operated by himself for 15 years. He does just about all work-including inframes. He told me it would do no harm to drop the interaxle driveshaft (The yokes are 1/2 rounds) and run it until I get home in 3600 miles. I dropped the driveshaft myself, and could not drive away. I had no power going to the front axle. I didn't know that I had to engage the interaxle differential lock. I called again him to make sure no harm would be done with it locked, and he confirmed again that no, there wouldn't. I learned that with it disengaged, all of the power goes to the rear axle. I assume thats a factor in why rear axle tires wear faster than tires on the front axles. Engaging it transfer some of the power to front axle (all of it if connecting driveshaft is dropped).

 

That is incorrect. Power is provided to both axles at all times. All the lock does is lock the outputs so they are forced to always rotate at the same speed.

 

My GPS covers my lock switch where I can’t see it, so I forgot the thing locked for a couple of weeks of driving and nothing bad happened!
This was in a 2016 Cascadia.

 

You won't hurt anything driving with INTER AXLE INTERLOCK engaged.

Driving with the diif locks engaged is only advisable on slippery , mudding or snow covered roads. Never dry pavement and not over 35 mph. ..

Many People to this day still have no idea how the INTERLOCK and or DIFF LOCKS work.

 

Inter axle lock: both drive axles have power.

Differential lock: wheels on either end of axle are locked together and forced to turn same speed.

 

it can put a bind on things and cause extra heat and wear. if all your tires have equal tread depth the affect would be minimal. not recommended but if you did it on accident and everything still seems fine i wouldn't worry about it. i wouldn't do it intentionally.