I looked through the posted thread, but that still leaves me wondering how the mechanical four wheel drive works on my JD 3320.
I KNOW there is a differential between the left & right wheels of the rear axle.
I KNOW that when I press the Differential Lock pedal that locks the two rear wheels together - so they roll at the exact same speed. It says so in the manual - very clearly.
I assume that there is a differential between the left & right wheels of the front axle. Correct??? There has to be. If they are locked side-to-side it would make sharp turns in super difficult in any mode - and that doesn't happen. If the front wheels are free-wheeling, then MFWD couldn't work (I can't imagine power would be provided to only one wheel all the time).
When I engage the mechanical four wheel drive (MFWD) it puts power to the front axle - BUT I have two questions:
(1) Does the front differential - assuming it exists - ever lock? I don't think so.
(2) With MFWD engaged, is the front and rear axle locked together? I'm assuming they are - which is why the tractor doesn't like hard turns in MFWD and it tends to shred turf. If there was a differential between the front and rear axles - the tractor wouldn't have any trouble doing tight turns even in MFWD (which would be nice), BUT it would get stuck if even one wheel lost traction. So, my assumption has always been that the front & back axles are locked (no differential) in MFWD. Am I correct?
I know some cars have "limited slip differentials", but I suspect that my tractor doesn't have those - not side-to-side, nor back-to-front.
To summarize, I assume that there is a rear side-to-side simple differential that can lock by pressing the "differential lock pedal", that there is is a front side-to-side simple differential that never locks. I assume that in non-MFWD mode there is no power to the front axle - that the front axle is not at all connected to the rear axle, and in MFWD the front and rear axles are hard-locked. Am I correct?