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Show your broken twisted D30 axles.

2K views 29 replies 14 participants last post by  cDee63 
#1 ·
Since all the forum experts are so sure that D30 is guaranteed to twist and break like a twig every time you go out to wheeling with it, I figured it'll be great to have a thread that shows pictures or videos from the people who actually broke them.

So please save your smart *** comments to yourself if your haven't broken a D30 axle personally.

This thread should reach at least 100 pages of broken axle pictures within next couple of hours. ;)
 
#3 ·
I think to avoid this turning into another silly debate that we should say "no broken axle pic....no post". Just a thought. I have pics of a few of the boys fixing them....but not so many of the actual axle....why would you|? but since I've not personally broken one (stock wheels and it was my daily driver so I was careful!) and its not a pic of mine I cannot post.....otherwise you will just gets loads of copied and pasted web pics!!

Can the opening poster delete posts on here like some other sites???....don't think so.....but if you can please fell free to delete this one if pics start coming in. The pic I want to see was a guy who has laterally had about half a dozen or more he had done. The pic was on here somewhere but I cant remember his user name....someone will. What was interesting was the way they all looked virtually identical at the break point.
 
#7 ·
We're looking for broken metal war stories.

(Not Jeep related) Some years ago I stopped to help a woman broken down on the highway. She had thrown a connecting rod clear through the block. Bad news for her but it was kind of interesting for me.
 
#12 ·
I know it's weaker than other options out there. But I don't think it's as weak of a link in the Jeeps armor as some want you to believe, or there would be more proof of trashed shafts and such! I don't understand why strengthening it is such a taboo subject.
I think most of the damage done to them is driver error and not knowing how to wheel! When something is so widely used how can it be that bad......???
 
#13 ·
Between my fiance and I, we've gone through a dozen or so axle shafts, probably close to a hundred hub assemblies and well over a hundred ujoints in the past 5 or so years. Gotta love lifetime warranties. We used to go mud thumping a few times a week which wreaked havoc on the D30. I was changing hub assemblies and u joints on a weekly basis. If I let the ujoints go too long they would seize up and we would rip the ears off the shafts

I avoid mud like the plague now and dont wheel nearly as much as we used to so the numbers have come down a lot now. If you stay out of the mud and wheel smart, a D30 can last. My passenger side axle shaft actually has the ujoint caps tack welded in right now because the ears were wallowed out and Ive hit Rauschs blue and black trails twice like that. You have to be smart with the skinny pedal. AKA dont just sit there bouncing off the rev limiter spinning all 4 tires like a rock bouncer

FWIW, my D30 is a high pinion, locked under my YJ on 35s with the CAD which supposedly was a weaker D30. And my fiances is a high pinion on 35s and she manages to catch air every time we go out. No upgrades to either housing other than a solid diff cover and some alloy tube seals
 
#14 ·
I broke a bunch of CV joints, but never the shafts themselves. However I did bend the housing badly jumping a curb when I got crashed into. It bent badly enough that I couldn't pull the long side shaft out. To be clear, neither the axle nor the wheel took a direct hit in the accident, it was going up over that curb and slamming back down that bent the axle.
 
#30 ·
I bought my 04 wrecked, hit hard passenger side front wheel almost straight on broadside. That bent the housing tube back about 2", the axle shaft itself was removed and the hole stuffed with a rag. Had to replace the passenger fender and it bent the LCA mount pretty good, that was my excuse for a long arm in front.. Sorry I didn't get a pic of it.
 
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