When should my 4x4 work?????????

[scottidog]

Hiya guys, I always drive my surf in 2 wheel drive on the road, i have used it a few times in 4x4 high box off road at low speeds and even low box off road and never had any problems. Today, as probably you all know its been snowing all over the country so i thought i would try drive home from work in 4 wheel drive (high box obviously).... Anyway i noticed alot of vibration from the front end and when i finally got home i put the surf in full left hand lock and the transmission locked up completely. Is the 4x4 mode on surfs meant for the road, im a mechanic and understand how a diff works (one wheel has to turn faster than the other when cornering) but it seems as though my surf doesnt want to go round corners in 4 wheel drive when on the road. ( i think its twisting the halfshafts and making a horrible crunching noise). Please help as my user manual is in japaneese and ive eaten as much curry as i can but still cant read it. I havent caused any damage as yet but when i jacked up the front end of the truck the wheels turned round as if the halfshafts are twisting. HELP

[Silversurfer]

4 wheel drive

You can use 4wH drive on slippy roads ie. snow, thick mud etc as the tyres will slip enough to stop transmission wind up but you will notice on full lock turns that it can be hard to turn unless the road surface is slippy. My wife once left it in 4wH in the drive and I didn't realise when I tried to move it and it was really hard to move. At the weekend I was marshalling on the Kall Kwick rally in Dalby Forest and used 4wH for 50miles on road to get there as there was a good amount of snow. The beauty of the Surf is you can switch in and out of 4w drive at the touch of a button at up to 60mph so if the roads dry out just switch 4wH off.

The Surf doesnt have free wheeling hubs so the driveshafts do turn when you spin the wheels.


The attachment is a translation of the instructions for 4w drive.

[kitesurf_phil]

Hiya guys, I always drive my surf in 2 wheel drive on the road, i have used it a few times in 4x4 high box off road at low speeds and even low box off road and never had any problems. Today, as probably you all know its been snowing all over the country so i thought i would try drive home from work in 4 wheel drive (high box obviously).... Anyway i noticed alot of vibration from the front end and when i finally got home i put the surf in full left hand lock and the transmission locked up completely. Is the 4x4 mode on surfs meant for the road, im a mechanic and understand how a diff works (one wheel has to turn faster than the other when cornering) but it seems as though my surf doesnt want to go round corners in 4 wheel drive when on the road. ( i think its twisting the halfshafts and making a horrible crunching noise). Please help as my user manual is in japaneese and ive eaten as much curry as i can but still cant read it. I havent caused any damage as yet but when i jacked up the front end of the truck the wheels turned round as if the halfshafts are twisting. HELP

The 4WD on the 2nd gens is for the slippy stuff only. The transmission will wind up quite quickly on grippy surfaces. If it will come out of 4WD it should release OK.
I have only got mine stuck once and I got onto some soft ground and gave it some welly forwards and backwards a couple of times. It's a worry but they are tough beasts and it should be OK. How far did you drive it on the tarmac?

[JimL]

Put simply a pre '96 surf is what they call part-time 4WD. A '96 onwards surf was the 1st one fitted with full-time whenever you want it 4WD.

Part-time means you use the 4WD system on a surface with a bit of give in it. Use your pre '96 surf on concrete or tarmac and kiss its a$$ goodbye $

[exmee46]

To use any 4wd on a hard surface requires some method of allowing the front and rear axles to turn at different rates since they follow different tracks around corners. This is usually done with a centre differential or other limited slip device. Pre 3rd gen Surfs (pre 96) dont have this and are therefore unsuitable for use in 4wd in dry or grippy conditions. Just like your basic land rover.

The 4wd is for hauling you out of trouble, not preventing you getting into it. Best to wait until you are sure its got slippery before engaging.

In fact, engaging before the ground is slippery will actually increase the tendency to slip as it will be trying to drive the wheels at the wrong speed on corners and break traction early. This is quite a different approach to permanent 4wd transmissions that will always keep the road wheels going at the right speed up to the limit of adhesion.

The strain caused by forcing the wheels to run at different speeds will cause the half shafts to wind up until one tyre lets go - there is nowhere else for the difference in rotation to be absorbed. This severe strain - if repeated often enough - will eventually cause failure of the weakest component in the transmission.

Cheers

Kev

[Guest]

Hiya guys, I always drive my surf in 2 wheel drive on the road, i have used it a few times in 4x4 high box off road at low speeds and even low box off road and never had any problems. Today, as probably you all know its been snowing all over the country so i thought i would try drive home from work in 4 wheel drive (high box obviously).... Anyway i noticed alot of vibration from the front end and when i finally got home i put the surf in full left hand lock and the transmission locked up completely. Is the 4x4 mode on surfs meant for the road, im a mechanic and understand how a diff works (one wheel has to turn faster than the other when cornering) but it seems as though my surf doesnt want to go round corners in 4 wheel drive when on the road. ( i think its twisting the halfshafts and making a horrible crunching noise). Please help as my user manual is in japaneese and ive eaten as much curry as i can but still cant read it. I havent caused any damage as yet but when i jacked up the front end of the truck the wheels turned round as if the halfshafts are twisting. HELP

I would guess basically that the roads wern't slippery enough. The 2nd Gens had no center diff.

Basically in this kind of situation, if it feels bad when you put it in 4WD then take it out of 4WD. There really is no way to see if the roads are slippery enough from inside the cab apart from the feel of things. The type of tyres you are using will also have an effect. If you have really aggressive tyres then they will bite into the snow covering and you may even find with a good covering of snow that you can't use 4WD because there is no slip allowing the transmission to not get "wound up".

Cheers

[Verbal]

I would guess basically that the roads wern't slippery enough. The 2nd Gens had no center diff.

Basically in this kind of situation, if it feels bad when you put it in 4WD then take it out of 4WD. There really is no way to see if the roads are slippery enough from inside the cab apart from the feel of things. The type of tyres you are using will also have an effect. If you have really aggressive tyres then they will bite into the snow covering and you may even find with a good covering of snow that you can't use 4WD because there is no slip allowing the transmission to not get "wound up".

Cheers

I can`t use 4WD in snow due to my BF Goodrich AT, they get too much traction. I`ve only ever had it in high box 4WD once and that was when I was in the middle of a river

[laser_jock@work]

I`ve only ever had it in high box 4WD once and that was when I was in the middle of a river

You need to take your Surf into some real slippy MUD! LOL

On last Sunday's greenlane day the Surfs were just crabing sideways there was so little uphill forward traction on quite a gentle slope! That was using MT tyres with around 20mm tread depth left......I was glad of the low ratio option then.

Snow- so rare down here we'll probably never know what the traction is like!

Nevillef

[Verbal]

We have more snow, less mud really. Theres no greenlanes in Scotland, so you need to know someone who has acess to forestry commission land or some landowners, to get serious mud.

This year we have not had any serious snow to talk about, so I`ve not had any real test for the surf. Hopefully I`ll get some more routes sourced in the summer.

[laser_jock99]

We have more snow, less mud really. Theres no greenlanes in Scotland, so you need to know someone who has acess to forestry commission land or some landowners, to get serious mud.

This year we have not had any serious snow to talk about, so I`ve not had any real test for the surf. Hopefully I`ll get some more routes sourced in the summer.

Well I just watched the weather forecast and they're predicting 10 - 5 cm of snow (less here in the Midland's but who knows?) for Wednesday. Might be a chance to try out 4WD actually on the roads!

Personally I don't think 4WD will make a lot of difference in snow on top of ice. If your gonna slide- your gonna slide. Only chains or studs would make the difference (like the Scandinavians tend to use!).

Nevillef