4WD EXPEDITIONS · Elite Offroad Craft

THE PIVOT: TURNING THE NOSE DOWNHILL WITHOUT MOVING THE TRUCK

12 min · Full library · written from fifteen years in the terrain

The point

After this lesson you understand the driveline logic that lets a stationary truck walk its own nose sideways - handbrake holding the rear, centre diff open, front locker in - and when that trick is the safest way to point a vehicle downhill.

Half the answer, free

The Technique

  1. First, the problem this solves, because the technique makes no sense without it. You are on an off-camber shelf or a tight switchback, and the truck needs to point down the hill before it can descend - but there is no room to drive a turn, and reversing around on a slope you can barely stand on is the worst option available. What you want is to swing the nose without the truck actually going anywhere. That is exactly what this does.
  2. The pieces, and why each one is there. Handbrake hard on: the rear axle is now anchored, and it becomes the hinge. Centre diff open - unlocked - and this is the counterintuitive part, because a diff that is open sends drive to whichever axle is easiest to turn. With the rears held by the handbrake, all of it goes to the front axle. Front locker engaged, so both front tyres pull together instead of the unloaded one spinning uselessly. Full steering lock toward where you want the nose to go.
Still under the glass
  • Handbrake, open centre, front locker: the driveline logic that swings a nose downhill with the truck held in place
  • 6 more technique steps
  • The 6 mistakes that undo it, with fixes
  • The drill that builds the reflex
  • The safety non-negotiables

It opens when you book a trip that runs 4wd expeditions - these are the exact drills you run with your coach out there. Your booking unlocks this whole library.

Book a trip, unlock this libraryOr put $200 down - unlock it today

Ridden with us already? Enter your Union key.

First Tracks

New lessons, new film and new Intel land after every Recon. First Tracks reads it before anyone else.

← Mechanical Advantage: Rigging th…Rock Crawling: The Slow Game Rea… →

← Full 4wd expeditions curriculum

Get In Touch

LET'S BUILD
YOUR
ADVENTURE

Whether you want to surf Japan's legendary powder, ride the Old Telegraph Track to the tip of Cape York, or chase a New Zealand winter - tell us what you're dreaming about and we'll build the trip around you.

BaseAustralia · Operating Globally
Instagram@deej_ayes_an_alias

Read this before you send

The activities we run can kill you. That is not a figure of speech and it is not a formality on a form. People are killed and permanently injured doing every single one of these sports, every season, including people who are experienced, fit and well equipped.

The specific ways it happens on our trips: buried and asphyxiated by an avalanche. Crushed by a machine that rolls onto you. Head and spinal injuries from a fall or an impact. Drowning. Hypothermia. Being hit by a tree, a rock, or another rider.

We operate in remote country. On most of our trips a serious injury means hours before a helicopter reaches you, if weather allows a helicopter at all. On some of them it means longer. There is no version of this where help is close.

You will be asked to complete training before you ride with us. That training is there to give you a better chance and to make you useful to the people around you. It does not make you safe, it does not make you competent, and passing it is not a qualification. Nobody can make this safe. We are not offering to.

Every person on the trip, including us, is relying on everyone else being honest about what they can actually do. If you are not sure you want this, that is worth listening to.

The enquiry cannot be sent until this is typed.