Originally Posted by wayoflife

what i'm saying is that even if you could bend the housing - SO WHAT? sure, you would have camber on your wheels but that will not prevent you from getting home. running bigger tires will significantly increase your odds of breaking an axle shaft and that is a real problem. even if you have the tools and know how to pull the shaft, you'll no longer have 4WD and depending on where you are on the trail, this could make your exit back to pavement a lot harder.

let me put it to you this way. since the JK came out, i have only heard of maybe 5 front axles housing shattering and witnessed one of them with my own eyes. i have checked and verified that all these breaks were on early 2007 model rubicon 44 front axles. i have not heard of any new breaks since on any newer model rubicons or on ANY dana 30's for that matter - NONE. and i should add that the one axle i saw break, everyone in the industry i know that i showed pics of it to all agreed that this was probably a defect in the metal as it seemed to be brittle. bending axle tubes can and does happend under the right conditions but shattering like this is not something you should see. fortunately, the axle i saw break was covered under warranty for this.

having said all that, i have personally had and have seen countless axles with bent c's. for this, gussets are good to have. i have also seen plenty of broken axle shafts and have personally replaced several myself. these are the facts or, at least based on what i have seen and experienced over the past few years. again, while sleeves aren't bad to have, they simply aren't necessary and all the hype suggesting that they are is just that - hype.

Originally Posted by porters

WOL is right one the money. One thing I would add is when you are doing any axle mods keep the weak link principle in mind. If you beef up one part then sure that stronger part is less likely to break, but the next weakest part of the axle will break instead. One example would be a Built D30. If you put RCV shafts in and an ARB locker and regear to 5.38. The week link is the teeth on the R&P. Break a few teeth off the R&P and you have a problem that will be a bear to fix on the trail and expensive to repair when back to the shop. If your weak link is something easy to get to, cheap to replace, and easy to fix on the trail you are much better off.

Originally Posted by Piginajeep

the guy I gave you the number for welded my C-gussets on as well

Originally Posted by wayoflife

exactly!! and, that's why i'm still a fan on u-joint axle shafts. if at all possible, i would much rather blow out a u-joint then break something inside my axle. been there done that and on more than one occasion.

Originally Posted by Scooter Scott

So I am a pretty mild wheeler. Yes I am locking up and putting 5.13s in my D30...but like I said I am very conservative on the skinny. I don't like to push things hard. If I keep my stock axle shafts for the time being...that would be my weakest link correct? Or by upgrading the axle shafts is that going to make the ujoint the weakest link? My apologies for my ignorance just trying to understand what's going on with all this

Originally Posted by porters

So WOL, would you get chromo inners and outers, and leave the u-joint as the weak link?

Originally Posted by BlackNorthernJK

Great thread guys, engineer you failure point in your favour