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Here is what happened, yesterday I took my M-38A1 out with a group of Jeepers for some trail riding. The trails had some mud and plenty of small rocks easily handled, a couple of steep hills and then there were a couple of big rocks. I tried to tackle them, but no go MDCC tires had no traction, so I went around. In the process I got high centered on the rear differential and had to be pulled off. When this was going on it was noticed that the front driveshaft was spinning but the wheels were not moving.

I got the jeep home and opened the lockouts and find nothing broken there, drain and open the differential and find nothing obviously wrong there, no pieces of metal, shavings etc. I spin the driveshaft by hand and the pinion and ring / carrier rotate fine. I put the lockouts back on and turn one wheel forward the other spins reverse; tested both wheels this way. I hold one wheel imobile and spin the other the drive shaft rotates, same with other wheel.

I have tried everything I can think of and find nothing wrong. Could the lockouts jumped out of LOCK and caused the above symptom and driving it back to the gathering area put it back into normal mode? Looking for other things to look at just to be sure before I put it all back together.

BTW - Jeep performed fantastic till this little incident happened. Handled every obstacle with flying colors. Main reason I had to stop was driver (me) was getting a bit of heat Temp 88-90F and humidity in high 60's plus.

So let me know what you think...

Thanks...

As always when suggesting trouble shooting ideas, I like to start with the obvious, and this time it includes a bit of an embarrassing story from a personal mistake. My first truck in high school was a Nissan Hardbody that I used to take in the woods from time to time. There was one late night out following some friends through the woods where I found myself spinning my wheels, even though I knew I was in 4 low. Perplexed on how easily I started to get stuck, I hopped out to quickly realize that I had accidentally UNlocked my hubs right before we entered the trail. I had either driven there with the hubs locked, or at some point locked when without thinking about it, but regardless I had simply turned them the wrong way.

So short story long, I would check the obvious and see if maybe you had them unlocked from the beginning and maybe the trail was easy enough in the beginning that you had tackled it in 2 wheel drive.

I would be curious to know if maybe even one hub was not locked, because with an open diff you would then lose power to both front wheels.