I stare into the Crystal Ball of other peoples breaks and think to myself....good grief, that's not so good.

Sorry to hear about your break Blazer4949.

 

Wow! Next mod on my list. Axle sleeve and c2 gusset.

 

If the Axle Housings (and other parts) are made out of Chinese steel then that could be a cause of failure. Its suspected that the Chinese dont hold up to our ASTM standards and there for might be weaker (I guess you get what you pay for)

Nothing beats American Made

 

Im not even bothering upgrading the D30, just going to save the pennies and go straight to a Prorock 44 and hopefully save myself the headache. I can be patient till then.

 

The welding should not do that much to the metal. Depending on what wire and process they used, the worst I can see happening is cracking near the weld. Shit this aint chromoly where you need to normalize the whole part in an oven. My guess would be too thin of steel, or the wrong alloy.
(rant) everything is recycled these days, and unless it is virgin steel you cant be sure it is the "true" alloy. I have see A36 that was tested, and had a small section of the larger plate that was very hard and had too much carbon it in!

I am thinking of welding on a brace and not putting in a sleeve. That way if your axle is bent you can weld it on and stop any further stress from the outside.

 

There is one way to tell for sure if it was was an instant catastrophic break or a break from a crack that traveled. If there is any corrosion, or dirt/oil contaminates along the cracked surface that suddenly stops, then the crack has been there "working" it's way across the metal.

It's hard to tell from the photos but, it looks pretty even across the whole crack like there wasn't any corrosion or crack previously. But it's hard to tell without seeing it in person with good lighting.

 

Okay, I've talked to my friend that broke his axle housing running stock tires and he said that he noticed that the tube was tearing while on the trail but was able to get off before it completely tore apart. I haven't had a chance to talk to blazer4949 yet but, I suspect that's what happend to him as well as the last message I got from him was that he was able to get the housing welded and was able to get home okay.

 

Mind if I ask if your friend running stock tires was also still using his stock control/suspension arms?

 

glad the Evo's are sitting in the closet ready for the next round of install.



Mel - you better start upping your sleeve production. You're about to sell a bunch.

 

I did the EVO Sleeves and gussetts before I went to 35" tires and I just regared to 4.88 and lockers, I am very pleased with the results. The price for the parts was $239 for the sleeves and gussetts and $80 bucks for the RK lower control arm mounts which are competely enclosed made out of 1/4" steel. The labor was $420 to install everything, sleeves, gussetts and lower control arm mounts.