I just helped a guy recover his JK that he was trying to recover a 3/4 ton Dodge 4x4 with-stuck in ditch with 3 feet of heavy wet snow. Anyhow, JK guy is tugging on the truck with a strap in reverse, he took out a front axle U joint, stub, inner axle, and steering knuckle in one shot, as well as taking a bite out of the inner "C".
Moral of the story is "do not pull anything in reverse". A vehicle has very little strength engineered into it to support those loads in reverse. Front axles are weaker than rears, they are physically smaller than rears, transfer case front outputs are largely chain driven, they are also smaller than rears, front driveshafts are lighter than rears. Forward motion places a greatly reduced load on the front end compared to the rear which is why vehicles are built this way, which is also why you should pull from the rear, where the vast majority of strength is built in. Another thing in this case was a 4000 pound vehicle trying to extract a 8000 pound anchored truck with speed, it can be done, but it's a practise I don't care for, too much can go wrong.
It may seem basic, but I have seen this so many times I thought it should get posted. Not all the guys I've seen doing this are dummies, they just never considered the load vs vehicle design.
Cheers,
Mark.
PS I recovered both vehicles very easily with a light tug in the right direction with my 3/4 ton crew cab truck.
Moral of the story is "do not pull anything in reverse". A vehicle has very little strength engineered into it to support those loads in reverse. Front axles are weaker than rears, they are physically smaller than rears, transfer case front outputs are largely chain driven, they are also smaller than rears, front driveshafts are lighter than rears. Forward motion places a greatly reduced load on the front end compared to the rear which is why vehicles are built this way, which is also why you should pull from the rear, where the vast majority of strength is built in. Another thing in this case was a 4000 pound vehicle trying to extract a 8000 pound anchored truck with speed, it can be done, but it's a practise I don't care for, too much can go wrong.
It may seem basic, but I have seen this so many times I thought it should get posted. Not all the guys I've seen doing this are dummies, they just never considered the load vs vehicle design.
Cheers,
Mark.
PS I recovered both vehicles very easily with a light tug in the right direction with my 3/4 ton crew cab truck.
