Forward carrier assembly with a reversible inter-axle differential for a tandem axle vehicle, a powertrain for a tandem axle vehicle, and a tandem axle vehicle

Abstract

A tandem axle vehicle includes a powertrain. The powertrain includes an input shaft, a forward drive axle assembly including a forward carrier assembly including a forward differential, and a rear drive axle assembly coupled to the forward drive axle assembly via a connecting driveshaft and including a rear carrier assembly including a rear differential. The forward carrier assembly includes an inter-axle differential (IAD), the IAD including an IAD housing, a differential spider including a plurality of legs attached to the IAD housing and a plurality of spider gears mounted on the legs, a first side gear engaged with the spider gears on a first side of the spider and arranged to drive a shaft for driving the driveshaft, and a second side gear engaged with the spider gears on a second side of the spider and arranged to drive the forward differential. A clutch is movable between an unlocked position, the clutch rotationally coupling the input shaft and the IAD housing when in the unlocked position, and a reverse position, the input shaft being rotationally decoupled from the IAD housing when the clutch is in the reverse position.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.