Premature Forward Diff Wear?
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Senior User
Joined: Feb 2005
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From: Tillamook, Or.
Premature Forward Diff Wear?
Greetings All
I work in an office where we use two F350 4WD's as field survey trucks. Mostly hard surface road work but we also venture into the logging roads and farm fields of Western Oregon. The other crew is in the hadit of leaving their hubs locked all the time. My field partner and I have tried to explain that this will cause premature wear/failure of the front end, the whole issue of gear ratio and tire slip just seems to be beyond them. Their response is that the Blue Oval on the grill will have more to do with wear/failure.
Their truck has 10,000 miles on it and has developed a whine, or maybe a whistle. My partner and I speculated that this might be as simple as air being pushed out through the vent, or it might be the beginning of a bearing going out.
I would appreciate any input on this that I might be able to pass along. Or, please correct me if I'm wrong, apparently I'm not making the case well enough.
Thanks in advance.
I work in an office where we use two F350 4WD's as field survey trucks. Mostly hard surface road work but we also venture into the logging roads and farm fields of Western Oregon. The other crew is in the hadit of leaving their hubs locked all the time. My field partner and I have tried to explain that this will cause premature wear/failure of the front end, the whole issue of gear ratio and tire slip just seems to be beyond them. Their response is that the Blue Oval on the grill will have more to do with wear/failure.
Their truck has 10,000 miles on it and has developed a whine, or maybe a whistle. My partner and I speculated that this might be as simple as air being pushed out through the vent, or it might be the beginning of a bearing going out.
I would appreciate any input on this that I might be able to pass along. Or, please correct me if I'm wrong, apparently I'm not making the case well enough.
Thanks in advance.
Post Fiend
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 10,007
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From: Central Florida
Leaving the hubs locked will only cause you loose a little gas mileage, mostly in the form of miles per tankfull. All it is doing is turning the gears, axles and diff in oil. You could have a bearing failing, but I would suspect the gear oil had water in it or like wise for the hub bearings.
FTE Leadership Emeritus
Joined: Sep 2000
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From: Stephensville WI
It's not going to hurt anything in 10,000 miles. It might if they left the hubs locked for 200,000 miles, then you might see wear in excess of what is normal.
Most likely, it helps keep the lubrication circulated, as ReAX mentions. I think most 4x4 problems are caused by lack of use.
Fuel mileage, yes that will suffer.
As for the Blue Oval comment.......they should be made to drive Dodges.
Most likely, it helps keep the lubrication circulated, as ReAX mentions. I think most 4x4 problems are caused by lack of use.
Fuel mileage, yes that will suffer.
As for the Blue Oval comment.......they should be made to drive Dodges.
Post Fiend
Joined: Jul 2006
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Agreed that leaving the front hubs locked will cause zreo damage on drivetrain parts.
How can a front end that has the front diff. turning, not outlast the rear one that is under power all of the time?
Full time 4x4 units that split output from the front to the rear, have the same amount of wear, and tear on both the front, and the rear axles. A front axle from a part time 4x4, that spends most of its time with the hubs locked will only stay better lubricated than one that only gets used once in a while. Just due to rotational mass, will the fuel mileage be slightly less, that is it.
The whine that was mentioned in the original post may only be related to the hubs, or front end if , a bearing is going away. It actually sounds like the needle bearings, and not a wheel bearing.
How can a front end that has the front diff. turning, not outlast the rear one that is under power all of the time?
Full time 4x4 units that split output from the front to the rear, have the same amount of wear, and tear on both the front, and the rear axles. A front axle from a part time 4x4, that spends most of its time with the hubs locked will only stay better lubricated than one that only gets used once in a while. Just due to rotational mass, will the fuel mileage be slightly less, that is it.
The whine that was mentioned in the original post may only be related to the hubs, or front end if , a bearing is going away. It actually sounds like the needle bearings, and not a wheel bearing.
Thread Starter
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Senior User
Joined: Feb 2005
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From: Tillamook, Or.
Originally Posted by mhoefer
I think the wine might be coming from the two WING NUTS in the cab :-)
HA!!!! If you only knew how right you are!!!
Thanks for the input everybody, looks like I was off base on this one. And BTW, the other crew chief spent $45K last year on a new Dodge. His justification was that his '97 Dodge needed so much expensive work done to it that he ends up actually paying less. If long life and relativly low maintenance cost is the burden I bear by driving a "Blue Oval" then I guess I'm just gonna have to bear with it.
