chuck45

That is correct; no questions asked. Had they been stock I'd have been buying new axles.

As to breaking the axles I recently did the math after talking to some axle venders at EJS. A generic D44 axle will take 7000 ft/# of torque before it may break. The newer D44's in our JK's with 32 splines may take even more. The math is 190 ft/# torque (at 2500 rpm) X 2.84 (ratio of auto 1st gear) X 4 (4:1 Rubi TC) X 5.13 (final drive ratio) = 11,702 ft/# of torque when the axle went. It was all going to that one axle as the wheel and tire where jammed in a crevice and nothing was turning. I'm actually kind of impressed by that.

One thing to note is that the 5.13 gears, as to which there have been questions as to strength, held up. I guess I'd rather loose an axle than gears as it's an easier repair.

jkkat

It was that thick, super gooy, never let you go mud in the first two pics.
The trailer was about 1/2 full of beach clean stuff weighing about 2000 lbs.
It was in reverse while Rhonda was trying to pull me out.
Thanks lots dave, Guess i am comming over to pick it up?
They are Alloy usa's baught from Dave @ Northridge4x4
I would have to agree with Chuck45, i am glad the stub shaft is the weak link, i did check the rest and the other 3 wheels have drive with the lockers on and RubyDoo is a 6 speed and being she was in reverse at about 2000 rpm when it happened 190 ft/lb x 4.06 reverese gear x 4 x 5.13= 15829.????

chuck45

You got it! That's a lot of torque. So this is a third point of data on the 5.13 gears not being the weak link we were concerned about.

tgrt

I would recommend that you pull all of your shafts and check out your differentials. I was on the trail with someone not too long ago in a TJ. His shaft broke when he was turning to line up with everyone on the trailhead. Granted the shaft was only a Dana 35 shaft, but it clearly had old damage in addition to the spot where it broke.

2climbbig

For what its worth... that axle broke in perfect Shear. You couldn't ask for a better text book example of a break due to shear. Nice and clean cross section.

chuck45

My Alloy USA front shaft broke so clean it looked like someone put it in a lath and used a parting tool on it. My Superior rear shaft was not as clean and the middle 30-40% had a mountain peak on one side/valley thing on the other side going on. I was told at EJS that this was the prefered break as it indicated a more gradual give as opposed to a snap. I would like to hear other opinions on this as I don't know.

chuck45

That is a good idea. When I broke mine I spun the ring and pinion and looked for damage. On the front I got a chance to look at the pinion too as I had to pull the carrier and ring gear to extract the axle stub. So far I'm impressed witht the strength of the 5.13 gears.

David at Northridge says he has some ARB lockers for the Rubi axle coming in in around 90 days. This will require new axles as the shafts will go from 32 to 35 spline. This may be a good thing as it should give us stronger axle shafts.

On the other hand I may just go to a D60 and have a D44 rear axles for sale with factory locker, 5.13's and Superior axles (to help defray the cost of the D60).

RedneckJeep

That's righy, buddy. Just smoke the competition with the best possible customer service. I love it.

jkkat

After i get the shaft installed, i am going back to Randy,s R&P who did the install of mine and see if they think there good to go.

Chris_CH

Well I think there is a flaw in the computation. You just have the torque at the out of the engine with all gear chained up. In fact you have to divide by 2 (output of the T.case) and if you were lock (axle) divide by 2 again (50% on each wheel) so the result might be: 2'925.5 ft/lb on this axle shaft.