Axle upgrade

I should note, I have seen my fair share of axle breaks on ALL axles and yes, 30's do have their weak points BUT those breaks need to be qualified. What gear ratio were they running? What axle shafts were they running? Did the u-joints have full circle clips or just standard C-clips? Was the differential locked up at the time of break? And, did the driver hammer on the gas like a moron?

As far as housings specifically go, a bent one won't leave you high and dry and really, that'd be the least of my concerns. The MAIN reason to upgrade is so that you can run beefed up internal components. One of them breaking will result in a bad day.
 
Aftermarket axle upgrades are so popular I would think that complete take off Rubicon axles would be popping up on Craiglist. Its been a while since I looked but there were 2 complete sets within 5 hours of me that were reasonably priced and looked brand new not too long ago.

My Rubicon axles have held up for almost 40K miles with 37's, I did break a front shaft at 31K miles but stupidity and pride were the cause. If I would have asked for a tug I would not have broke.
 
Thanks so much for everyones input. . It has been a real big help and a little bit of a relief to know I will be able to still wheel . I tend to be a feather foot . I have been known to run 35x15.50 bloggers on s-10 blazer drive train . . I'm I got real good a building diffs 🤣🤣🤣. The last Jeep I had was a 86 CJ-7 straight 6 with 33 mud hogs. Man that thing was so much fun
 
Raywins said:
Thanks so much for everyones input. . It has been a real big help and a little bit of a relief to know I will be able to still wheel . I tend to be a feather foot . I have been known to run 35x15.50 bloggers on s-10 blazer drive train . . I'm I got real good a building diffs 🤣🤣🤣. The last Jeep I had was a 86 CJ-7 straight 6 with 33 mud hogs. Man that thing was so much fun
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If you rebuild your own diffs why are you going to a shop to do it for $14k? 🤔
 
OverlanderJK said:
If you rebuild your own diffs why are you going to a shop to do it for $14k? 🤔
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I didn't know it would be 14K. plus I work all the time and I'm getting old. I don't have a lift and that concrete floor is not as comfortable as it used to be . But . That being said. I have priced out all the parts for the axel swap . And I think I can do it for around 9K and that's with upgrade axle shafts . So I may go that route
 
jpkjeep said:
The 30 gets a bad rap for no reason imo.
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There's plenty of reason especially when you start running 37's. The biggest of which is that in order to regain lost power, you really need to be running 5.13 gears and in a 30, the pinion is really small and ultimately, a very real weak point. But to your point, most of the doom sayers out there are just regurgitating what they've read on the internet and have no real or personal experience to back up what they have to say.
 
wayoflife said:
There's plenty of reason especially when you start running 37's. The biggest of which is that in order to regain lost power, you really need to be running 5.13 gears and in a 30, the pinion is really small and ultimately, a very real weak point. But to your point, most of the doom sayers out there are just regurgitating what they've read on the internet and have no real or personal experience to back up what they have to say.
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That's very true. I definitely would not advise anyone to run 37s on a 30. Upgraded shafts and a max of 35s do pretty well in my experience. Like you said there's no fix for the pinion size either. I did in 2 ring gears on 33's back in the day. You definitely can't be silly with the throttle lol.
 
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