Patent ID: 8851212

Claim:
A tandem axle vehicle, comprising: a powertrain, the powertrain comprising an input shaft, a forward drive axle assembly comprising a forward carrier assembly including a forward differential, a rear drive axle assembly coupled to the forward drive axle assembly via a connecting driveshaft and comprising a rear carrier assembly including a rear differential, the forward carrier assembly comprising an inter-axle differential (IAD), the IAD comprising an IAD housing, a differential spider comprising 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, and a clutch 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.