Good Tips For Winter Oilfield/dirtroad Driving?

Hello all, I started hauling crude oil locally for Maverik out of salt lake city in may. We haul super sets and do a lot of dirt road driving, sometimes 10-15 miles A day on the dirt. The roads are often pretty narrow plus lots of steep hills and sharp turns. Coming into this time of year things are starting to get pretty muddy and the snow is starting to come in over the mountain passes. I've done a few years of highway driving but this is my first job pulling doubles , hauling tankers or driving a lot off road. We also drive over Parleys, Daniel's and strawberry everyday and all three passes are known to get a lot of snow. So needless to say I think Ill be doing a lot of chaining this winter lol. Does anyone here have experience with this kind of stuff and have any good tricks or advice for me? We have a power divider plus forward and rear differential locks equipped on our trucks. Can anyone explain to me the difference between those three switches?

Hello all, I started hauling crude oil locally for Maverik out of salt lake city in may. We haul super sets and do a lot of dirt road driving, sometimes 10-15 miles A day on the dirt. The roads are often pretty narrow plus lots of steep hills and sharp turns. Coming into this time of year things are starting to get pretty muddy and the snow is starting to come in over the mountain passes. I've done a few years of highway driving but this is my first job pulling doubles , hauling tankers or driving a lot off road. We also drive over Parleys, Daniel's and strawberry everyday and all three passes are known to get a lot of snow. So needless to say I think Ill be doing a lot of chaining this winter lol. Does anyone here have experience with this kind of stuff and have any good tricks or advice for me? We have a power divider plus forward and rear differential locks equipped on our trucks. Can anyone explain to me the difference between those three switches?

I’ll leave the technical explanation of the power divider vs front and back axle locks to someone like G Town than can explain it way better but in short the one you’ll use the most by far is the power divider or “cross lock.” Make sure you don’t leave it on going more than roughly 30 mph.

As far as chaining, I’d do it a time or two while the weather is good so you know how so it’s not hard when you’re having to do it for real. Main things with chaining are make sure you don’t put the chain on inside out so the sharp part of the cross link connections aren’t digging into the sidewall. And the other would be to have the chain pretty much centered on the tire so it doesn’t fall off if it gets too loose—I try especially not to have the chain more to the inside of the tire because you really don’t want them sliding off in between the duals making them next to impossible to get off.