This might be an obvious answer to some, but I am curious. While wheeling a trail, the Jeep in front of me went down in a creek bed and it was too steep to get back out. I was directly behind him, but still up on high ground, so I offered to pull him back up. He said he would never pull someone using the Jeep in reverse. (I don't have a winch) He said it would easily destroy the diffs. I had never heard this. We used farm equipment in every way imaginable without ever doing damige this way. Can anyone shed some light on this before I do undue damage?

 

Can't say that I would not use reverse either..

 

i seen varying opinions on this topic... nothing solid. but to err on the side of caution, i would try to avoid it. I have done it numerous time with no issues

 

When in reverse, you're putting the stress of the pull on the "back side" of the teeth on your R&P gears. I don't think it's instant death by any stretch of the imagination, but you would be exposing the R&Ps to more stress than when in forward motion.

 

For me reverse causes this problem when trying to pull hard on something or get out of a severly stuck situation. BTW there is to be the driver side stub shaft there.

 

OUCH!!!

Thanks to all for the input. I understand and agree the stress would be pulling away fron the R&P carrier rather than pushing against it, but I figured the teeth would be under the same stress either way. I thought, maybe he meant it would be harder on the points where the difs attached to the suspension, but I was just guessing.

 

not only that but the reverse gear is not as stong as the forward. two reasons to none...id wouldnt pull in reverse

 

Same thing happened this weekend on my wheeling trip. One of our rigs got high centered on a HUGE rock. Directly behind him was one of our other rigs, D30, Detroit Locker with Warn hubs and upgraded shafts. He tried to pull the rig in reverse, Warn hub grenanded and landed 15ft. away and u-joint popped.

 

BTW that was a D44 Rubicon Alloy usa stub shaft.

 

The teeth on a ring gear exhibit the exact same principle as a dam that holds back water. Each tooth is in effect a dam of it's own that holds the force of the pinion gear driving the ring gear and carrier.



The driving side of the teeth in the pic is on the right side. See how each tooth is in an arc towards the driving side? In the same way a dam is made to take advantage of that arc, the ring gear teeth are also made. When in reverse, it is easy to see how the coast side of the teeth, then become the drive side, and they are NOT made for that.