Changing from 2wd to 4wd while stuck.

Let's just say for the sake of argument you become stuck in mud, snow and you can't go forward or backward. If I read the manual correctly, one must lock the hubs prior to shifting into 4wd. I am a little confused.

If your wheels cannot move - then you either glued to road , or your wheels pinched by fallen something or you got traction to road, in all other cases your wheels spinning, but truck couldnt get moving... Engaging of 4wd isnt done by measuring your position with GPS signals while truck moving, but by spinning of gears 8) So if you stuck like that - you still must be able to engage 4wd by just spinning wheels for a bit of time.

Thank you sir. I am new to 4wd and I am afraid of breaking something.

The myth is that you can't lock the hubs if you can't move, but that's false. If your rear wheels spin in 4WD, then the front driveshaft, diff, and halfshafts must also rotate. When the halfshafts rotate within the auto hubs, the hubs will lock regardless of if the front tires actually move at all. This can be a problem if the spinning rear tires cause the rear end to dig deeper into the ground or to slide sideways on a hill and get you deeper into trouble.

Brent

Here's something that the experienced guys all know, but might be overlooked (like I did). When you get stuck in 2wd, forgo shifting into 4hi. Go right into 4low. 4hi has a greater chance to spin the wheels, thus digging you deeper. 4low is great for crawling out of problems that 2wd gets the X into. After you go wheeling a bit, you'll get good at estimating the conditions, paths, and what gear setting will get you through.

Why get stuck in 2WD in the first place? Have it in 4WD before you go into a situation where 2WD isn't sufficient.

Sounds good in theory but sometimes you get stuck when you don't expect it. Last weekend, my wife pulled off the road onto some grass while we were geocaching. As it turns out, the soil under the grass was was really muddy and we could not get going again in 2WD. Once she put it into 4WD and popped the clutch, I almost ended up in the back seat!