dadgummit

I am upgrading to 37's in the near future so I will be taking the jeep to Offroad Evo for some 5.13's. Since I still have 4 more years of payments on the jeep I do not wheel it as hard as some others on here but I still try to take it off road at elast once a month. Are alloy Front axle shafts a necessary upgrade for 37's or should I wait until I actually break one?

wayoflife

"necessary"? depending on how you wheel and how heavy you are on the skinny pedal, maybe not necessary. definitely nice to have as a little extra insurance.

dadgummit

Thanks WOL!! Since I am already going to be paying for the gears I guess it makes sense to change the axles too since the labor or the axles woudl be much less.

Do you recommend just the fronts or both front and rear?

As for wheeling, I will do most of the trails but stay off the harder rock gardens (I am Not good enough for that yet) but I do have a 20 mile commute and am into the gas pedal alot, though hopefully less with the 5.13's than the 4.10's.

wayoflife

you only really need the fronts and technically, they are something you can install yourself with ease. lockers should be done the same time as gears but you can install axle shafts anytime.

runit3

I recently was forced into buying a new set of front axles. I'm running 35's on my 4.10 geared rubi.

Completely shredded the yoke on the long (passenger) side axle when I was locked in 4-lo w/3ft of snow. I upgraded to RCV's -4340 chromoly steel and a constant velocity bearing system instead of the u-joints. I'm VERY happy with the new axles but they were about 5 times the cost of a stock replacement shaft and about 2-3 times more expensive than a 4340 chromoly and CTM U-joint combo. The best part about RCV's (besides a lot less bind) is that they replace if you break them, as long as you haven't turned in more than 45degrees (adjust your steering stops).

IMO I would run the stock axles front and rear until one of them breaks. I would bet money a front long side joint or shaft would break before the rears. Keep a small savings fund for future axles and decide which price range and option you want. I was lucky enough to have some money saved up for gear install that had to be diverted to my axles

So to answer your original Q I would wait until one breaks. Keep a 35mm axle nut socket, 13mm 12-point socket, rag, and torque wrenches with you on the trails so you can pull the axle and seal the tube. I was EXTREMELY lucky to be wheeling with some knowledgeable and prepared people or I would've been screwed.

wayoflife

for sure, CV joints are really strong and i'd be willing to bet that they'll never break at the joint the way a u-joint would. AND, that for me is a problem. chromoly shafts can and do break - trust me, i've done it and and if doesn't break at the joint, you can have a lot more damage on your hands than you realize. for me, my break happend on the shaft near the splines and this ended up trashing the carrier bearings and ultimately, the entire housing.



As you can see, the axle blew just above the splines...


Forunately, we were able to get home just fine after that but after getting my JK to Off Road Evolution and taking things apart, we found that our locker and carrier bearings were FUBAR...




To make things worse, the front axle tube where the seal goes on the driver side was totally mangled....


needless to say, i now run a prorock 60 because of it. of course, if you can't afford a 60, i would stick with shafts that have u-joints. but, that's just me.

jeepnick

dave @ northridge has gears and front and rear shafts in his package deals at a steal, check them out....i have them sitting in my garage waiting for a rainy day..

Dynatrac

The thing to remember here is that not all axles shafts are equal. Just because an axle is marketed as a '4340' shaft doesn't necessary mean that the shaft is a huge (or any) upgrade. The manuafacturing tolerences of import shafts is questionable. I don't think you'll find anyone to tell you that an import 4340 shaft is better than a domestically made 4340 shaft. We are continually pursued by import axle suppliers and the quality is hit and miss AT BEST.
We've all heard the stories of some import '4340' shaft breaking in a circumstance that was unexpected. WOL's broken shaft up above is a perfect example of how a shaft should look when it breaks. But even then, we really see very few failures of domestic 4340 shafts (even 30 sp Dana 44). Much more frequent are the shaft failures that look like someone cut them on a band saw. Usually this type of break indicates some sort of deficiency in the manufacturing process.

Dynatrac

I like the RCV shafts but there is just as much potential to break one of them at the shaft (instead of at the joint) as the other domestic 4340 shafts.

CTNEDGE

x2. Every time I have broken a chromoly axle it looked sheared. Had 2 of them break inside the locker and fortunately did not trash my housing as WOL experienced but did trash the bearings and the carrier. Had to cut the frigging carrier in half to expose the locker (aussie) so I could get the sheared off stubs out of it.
I can't prove it but I personally think I paid big bucks for trash and should have replaced with stock axles. In fact I haven't even repaired it from the last fiasco, saving up for 60's.