Today i got stuck on a hill and decided to turn on the electronic locker since i have 4x2. I noticed that the wheels were just spinning in place and one time they slide a few feet side to side. Some vibration was felt. I want to know if i did any damage to the drivetrain?

 

The "locker" locks your wheels into a positraction mode. So yes, if you were on ice, both wheels would have been spinning.
Generally, when on ice, it is not uncommon for your truck to slide to one side or the other.
Vibration.....hhhmmmmm

 

When the vibration happened the truck was in the same spot so its not like i was turning...no noticeable clunking after that whole situation

 

It's really not clear what you did exactly or what may have happened.

Notice that big metal pumpkin in the middle of your axle? That houses your differential. You need a differential because when you turn on the road, the outside tire has to turn more than the inside tire (it's covering more ground). If it was just a solid chunk of steel connecting both tires, you'd skip and lurch and bark the tires as you turned. So differentials are wonderful things. But one of the downsides to this setup is that torque goes to the path of least resistance. So if you're stopped with one tire on dry tarmac and one tire on a patch of ice, as you give it gas it's going to spin the tire on ice while the one with grip on the tarmac just sits there, getting nothing.

That's what a locker does: it locks the differential in place, cancelling out the normal differential action, so that no matter what you get 50% of the torque to each of the tires. Enabling your selectable locker just means you intentionally invoke that behavior to get out of the situation you're in.

With the electronic selectable locker in the current generation Super Duty trucks, Ford has some nanny controls to prevent you from enabling it if it's clearly inappropriate and will disable it for you (such as if you get going too fast). It's unlikely that you would have done any damage driving around on a muddy hill just because you're using the locker. Unless you ran over a stump or rock or otherwise had some weakening parts that were about to give up anyway, you should be fine.

PS Why not go into 4x4? Gives you a lot better traction and control. The locker is icing on that cake.

 

I really have no use for 4x4. Dry roads is basically all i drive on. Happened to get caught in the snow storm thats hitting the east coast and my street is a hill so as i was backing into my driveway (which is also a hill) the truck just got stuck between the two if thats easy to picture. I thought the locker would be useful but the truck pretty much just kept spinnig out. The vibration is what bothered me because ive heard horror stories of people blowing up there diffs.

 

Haha no if that's all it is you should be fine. A locker is great but alone doesn't match driving all 4 wheels. It's more of a great add-on than a replacement.

By the way, are you saying you do NOT have 4x4 but DO have the selectable rear e-locker? That's pretty cool. I didn't even know that was an option. What year and model?

 

I have a '15 f250 xl 4x2 with 4.30 electronic locking axle

 

E-locker has been an option for quite a while now, my truck has it.

The "vibration" you felt was most likely caused by one wheel getting more traction than the other, no biggie.

 

Thats what i thought but i just wanted some others opinions. Its so cool to turn a dial and lock the diff.

 

Ltngdrvr beat me to it. The shudder was likely one or both of the tires grabbing a dry spot then a slippery spot and cycling back-n-forth; grip, slip, grip, slip...etc... Nothing to worry about. But its always good to let off the gas when it happens to save the wear tear on the drive train and tires. Slower is better when trying to get grip on snow/ice. Your truck might have the "second gear start" option? If so try putting it into 2nd gear with the locker engaged. You'll crawl right up and out of it. If you break a Ford rear-end you will know it.