Well? I mean I see people buying these Longfields cause they are worried about breaking the stock ones. Now for the most part these break cause of too much torque or too much grip like rock crawling right? So why bother to upgrade unless they are that weak? How many have you gone through?

James

 

I broke both mine (upgraded 1st generation Marfileds) on one trip, same obstacle. Running 33s and probably due to having to apply a lot of brake biasing to get my front TrueTrac limited slip to lock up and doing so while turned sharply. I did make it up unassisted and finished the trail under my own power. Usually a combination of taller tires, lower gearing (crawler gears or dual cases) and having the front tires turned too far or wedged in too tight and lockers or limited slips up front that cause breakage. Running moderate size tires, turning steering stops out farther, stock gearing, open diffs up front and they will probably wear out before breaking.

 

I see alot of guys still running the stock ones even with 35" or bigger. Heck any axles can snap the way you described how it could happen.

James

 

I only broke one on my 83 Toy... and that was just due to beating it (lots of wheel spin on a hill, bouncing, at full wheel crank). After I did the EFI conversion, Dual Tcases, 5.29s, 36" swampers (on 10" wide steel rims)... Never broke one. I rock crawled it everywhere... loads of pictures to prove it too!! I think the key is control.... if you have to bounce it around to get up stuff, you'll break. Or if you love lots of wheel spin.

 

I haven't broken one yet but I am running cryo treated longfeilds.
I am locked in the front and have 35's.
I have some spares I may have sent off to be treated as well.

 

Broken 1 here. Upgraded to longs after.

 

3 stock birf's in 4 months, switched to Long's in Feb of 2003, never had a problem since. Two trips to the Hammer's, countless runs off Table Mesa, 1000's of miles of forest service trails.

Here's my take on upgrading...

1. It's cheap insurance even if you don't crawl.

2. Breaking stockers on the trail means holding up a group. That sucks... I don't mind fixing rigs on the trail, but there is no excuse for busting stock u-joints or birf's when upgrades are available at reasonable cost.

3. The places I like to go are remote - so reliability is paramount. A broken birf can take out the housing or knuckle in extreme cases - not an option when your 40 or 50 miles off a main road.