did you know.... ok so everyone with a honda 4x4 atv has been in a tricky situation with one front tire off the ground spinning wildly searching for traction,which just spins, and spins. so the 4x4 suddenly becomes a 3x4. this might sound crazy, but the next time you are in this situation squeeze your front brake lever until it locks the spinning wheel. PRESTO!!! you have a locked front end and depending on how stuck you are, it might save you from having to back up, or get off in the mud, or water to push. hopefully this helps some people with their tricky riding situations. or have i been riding limited slip for all this time and just barley figure this out??

 

sweet, ill have to see if that works on my friend arctic cat 400 3x4

 

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Leroy400ex

did you know.... ok so everyone with a honda 4x4 atv has been in a tricky situation with one front tire off the ground spinning wildly searching for traction,which just spins, and spins. so the 4x4 suddenly becomes a 3x4. this might sound crazy, but the next time you are in this situation squeeze your front brake lever until it locks the spinning wheel. PRESTO!!! you have a locked front end and depending on how stuck you are, it might save you from having to back up, or get off in the mud, or water to push. hopefully this helps some people with their tricky riding situations. or have i been riding limited slip for all this time and just barley figure this out??</end quote></div>

I have been doing this for the last 10 years! I have suggested it many times here in the forum....kind of thought this was common knowledge by now.

The bias on the front end is something like 70% traction side/30% other side, so actually what happens when you hit the brake is that you "reset" the bias in favor of the wheel that has traction.

 

So how do you set it back? Or do you not even need to?

 

its just like tricking your 4wd into working properly..

you know, like a polaris , for a second or two

nothing to set back

 

Awesome I will definitely try this!

 

Actually, the only time I find I need to "reset" the diff is when neither wheel can find any traction....like in deep snow. Once you get to a point where you have some traction again, it takes a bit of time for the diff to decide which wheel that is, and you can speed the process up by tapping the front brake.