In this paper, we present a novel fully distributed version of a Mobile Backbone Network Topology Synthesis Algorithm (MBN-TSA) for constructing and maintaining a dynamic backbone in mobile wireless ad hoc networks. The following features induce the key advantages offered by the algorithm: a. The MBN-TSA algorithm is designed to work with the unreliable natural of wireless environment; b. The backbone layout is dynamically formed and locally modified in response to communications link quality fluctuations, nodal failures and nodal mobility; c. A control mechanism, employing the BN_Neighbor_Limit threshold as a key parameter, is introduced to control the size of the backbone network (BNet) and improve the stability; d. Analytical results show that the MBN-TSA has very little control overhead: time complexity in the order of O(1) and message complexity in the order of O(1) per node. In addition, we present an on-demand routing protocol that makes use of the underlying dynamically self-configured MBN network infrastructure. By carrying out extensive simulations, we demonstrate the performance advantages when compared to a non backbone oriented on-demand ad hoc routing protocol such as AODV.