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Zak1 · 07-09-2014, 10:46 PM

I "drove" a 3500 HD (Not diesel) today for the first time. Truck in 4low about 50 ft from a tree, chain from the frame to dual ropes tied about 100 ft away and up about 65 ft to a 35 ft horizontal branch that had been slightly cut by hand to hopefully ease cracking but was just to hard to get to to cut correctly. With the rope slowly pulled taught I sat in the driveway and considered the house 5 feet to my right and the other one 5 feet to my left. Everyone was out of the back yard and in front of me now. I eased the gas to see if the branch was weak enough to just snap, NOPE... the entire tree leaned in also as if a strong wind.
I eased the tension off to just taught again, paused, made sure everyone was clear, and then just punched the throttle!!!
The truck lunged forward, the 75ft(or so) tree bent in some and I kept upping the power to compensate for the drag, the back tires came off the ground (about 2 ft) but the front held strong and were still strongly pulling... it felt like the truck was now at about the same crazy angle as the rope! I pushed it a bit harder and ~crack~.. the branch broke, the tree flew back into place, the truck started forward rather quickly while the back wheels dropped... My van only about 15 ft in front of the truck, at some point I switched from gas to brake, but honestly do not remember when or even doing it. The truck stopped immediately and the branch hit the ground filling the entire back yard with tree! Missed the picnic table by a couple feet, missed the house entirely and the thickest part ended up up the fence right below it. But it had already been destroyed by other branches that fell in yesterdays storm. I put the truck in park and then moved the 4x back into 4 hi, ridiculously difficult to do by the way! But all in all I have to say that I was SERIOUSLY impressed with this trucks hard core ability to pull, even with only 2 wheels on the ground!!! And so easy to control I never hit either house, any random idiot that was to close OR my van!

I then took down 5 more branches, none of which were strong enough to lift the truck off the ground.

go4dsnow · 07-11-2014, 11:20 AM

Hope somebody did a video. LMAO

Ray,IN · 01-10-2015, 11:33 PM

re: your difficulty shifting out of 4wd. Is your transfer case electronic control or manual shift? Electronic push-button shift-gearshift must be in neutral to shift in/out of 4lo and completely stopped. Manual shift requires backing up about 20' or more to "unwind" the transfer case mechanism, then gearshift in neutral, then shift out of 4wd. FWIW, that was VERY hard on the transfer case internals.
My 02 Duramax/Allison has electronic transfer case shift.

billandcarol · 05-09-2015, 10:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray,IN

...Manual shift requires backing up about 20' or more to "unwind" the transfer case mechanism, .

That makes no sense - I've never heard of the need to "unwind" a transfer case.

ctbailey · 09-10-2015, 06:39 PM

I used to have to back up 10 ft to unlock the front hubs.

77Travco · 11-25-2015, 06:58 AM

Auto tranny should be in neutral when shifting t-case between low and high range. No need to back up... that's for the old auto hubs on the straight axle setups.
Aw crap... I just realized how old this thread is.

Ray,IN · 12-09-2015, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 77Travco

Auto tranny should be in neutral when shifting t-case between low and high range. No need to back up... that's for the old auto hubs on the straight axle setups.
Aw crap... I just realized how old this thread is.

Doesn't matter, he has never returned to read the replies anyway.
FWIW, you and Bill are right, I was thinking about my 02 and my BIL's old Ford dually at the same time.