This, my good sir, is why that axle broke. When you go to replace it, over tighten it again while its in the air, and try to spin it. You'll understand now why your axle broke You basically caused your axle to bind ( not spin ).

You're supposed to pre-load it to 43 ft lbs. Spin the tire left & right a few times. loosen it up, spin it left & right again, torque it again to 43 ft lbs, spin it a few more times, loosen it, and then torque it to 21 ft lbs.

Also, it looks like you didn't even have any grease in there. Grease those babies up!

 

how does the wheel bearing effect the CV shaft? the CV rotates inside of the spindle where the wheel bearings rotate on the outside of the spindle. the only thing holding that CV in is a 14mm bolt in the end adn then the splines. so my point being the CV shaft and wheel bearings dont interact with eachother.

 

Uhh... nope. There's two 54 mm nuts, a locking washer ( kinda looks like a star fish ) a c clip, and a splined washer. If you over tighten those 54 mm nuts. I promise you that you wouldn't be able to spin that wheel by your hands with it up in the air. Granted, your truck could easily still move it, but it would have major resistance. Putting it in 4wd and wheeling would grenade that CV joint. That's all I can think that would happen. Especially since you just said you snug fit them, which they're only supposed to be 20 ish ft lbs.

 

Seeing how I could spin my tire with no problem and it spun a couple revolutions after I let go I am positive I didnt over tighten them.

This is the 3rd time i have had the spindle apart and i have only ever seen one 54mm nut that preloads the wheel bearings, then the brake drum (the one for the automatic hub) there are three screws that tie the brake drum and that 54mm nut together, the brake drum has a protrusion that lines up with the notch in the spindle so that the 54mm nut doesnt back out, none of this stuff interacts with the CV shaft directly. i guess my truck is missing parts or something...

 

Over-torquing the wheel bearing isn't going to break CVs. While it does add resistance, it's minimal compared to driving the weight of the truck. I personally think that had nothing to do with it, especially if you could turn the wheel freely beforehand.

Porosity is common in the cheaper remanufactured axles, and there's really no way to tell who originally manufactured them. I broke one in almost the exact same place a few years back and you could see the porosity in the casting...hard to tell from the pic but you can almost see it in yours too.

As for the spindle, the axles only make contact with the bushings, so unless it's damaged to the point where you can't get the old ones out and new ones in (looks fine to me), there's no need to get a new spindle.

As mentioned above, the only sure-fire way to get quality axles is to fork out the extra money for genuine Toyota units.

 

This is what I was waiting for! A confirmation to my theory. im just going to pull it all apart and get all the metal bits and pieces out clean all the grease out and put it all back together with fresh grease.

as far as the brass colored piece tho i'll get a new one from the dealer or something but i should be able to smooth out any nicks in the spindle itself with some aluminum oxide and a little patience.

 

I doubt anything was wrong with your axle. With an open front, the weight of 33's (even 10.5" wide), one tire front tire with good traction and one tire bouncing, it's inevitable you'll snap an axle. The day after snapping a front CV like this I began looking for a front locker. Luckily I found one on Craigslist for $50!

 

I just remembered one other thing! The time I broke an axle like that I also chipped a few tooth on my front 7.5" differential, you might want to open your front differential up and check it out. Just a heads up!