Another one to be careful of, as I found out the hard way, is not to drive at speed with the front hubs locked, and in 2H. My car happened to be the only one in the convoy where you had to stop and get out to unlock the hubs. All the others could be done with a button on the dash, or whatever. So after doing the dirt tracks in 4H, when we reached the bitumen I thought I would just go back to 2H and not bother unlocking.
After 20km or so at about 90km/hr, and trying to push it up to 100km/hr to keep up with the rest, I was starting to get a bit worried. The little MQ was working very hard, and not really responding very well when I asked it for a few more revs. I thought there might have been a head wind, or maybe the old motor was finally expiring on me. I made some comment to the TEC behind ( the Wookie ) and he asked me if I had unlocked my hubs! Oops!
Pretty obvious now, but I had not thought it through at the time. Hopefully I learned my lesson. In 2H there is not going to be any danger of transmission wind up, but at 90km/hr with locked hubs the front wheels are not just quietly spinning on their bearings! They are driving two front axles, all the diff gears, churning a few litres of diff oil into a hot soup of froth and bubble, and spinning the front drive shaft and two uni joints, one of them quite heavy ( the double Cardan joint at the back ).
So no wonder the motor was struggling. Fuel economy going out the window, and plenty of wear and tear through the system that's not really needed!
