It does not work for me. I break axles. I am installing a Dana 44 in a week or two.

 

i realize that, but your's seemed to hold up pretty good.

 

Come on Steve! You're like a little kid! Surely you laugh at stuff said on these forums, surely. I never go to your threads and talk bad or disagree with your opinions on things, to my knowledge. I've respected your opinions numerous times, most often following your lead on our vehicles. I'm just curious if it's just my inquiring nature that irritates you or something else I've done recently or in the past?
That's fine, but I really did want to hear your comments on the subject, because you're one of the only people running what I am planning to do. Why can't we have an adult conversation about the pros and cons of doing this?
It's already sold or given away, rather, so it doesn't matter, but again why would you be like this?
Steve, I've emailed you probably over 100 times, and you've always been extremely helpful, so why this attitude now?

Chris

 

I'm trying to figure out the same thing. What kills me is that when Steve first put 35's on his rig, it was the best thing since sliced bread. But, now for some reason, it's not. Obviously, something has changed. I'm unclear myself.

Chris

 

I'm not doubting that there is more potential for breakage with the 35" tires, but he's been running them for quite some time, and one break is not a big deal in my opinion, but maybe that's just me. I may not ever lock my front end, because my truck will go just about anywhere I want it to now. I'm not saying it won't ever happen, but if I do, it'll probably be a solid axle swap instead just because of the cost of the IFS ARB setup.

Chris

 

Flex does not necessarily equal traction.

 

that was what i was hoping him to answer for me as well. i understand that he broke an axle or two with 35's but it didn't seem like he was breaking thme any more frequently than anyone else who was front locked with 33's.

 

yup its put away, remind me before we go and ill take it down

 

That's true, although more flex helps to keep the tires on the ground, which is obviously better than up in the air. Wouldn't you agree?

Chris

P.S. What was this statement in response to?

 

I agree, but I might not know the whole story.

Chris

 

awesome...now if i can put my wife back to work now that she is fully healed up from the baby and get my powertank i will have a place to mount it.

 

You should also consider a few other things that steve had w/ the 35's when he broke stuff. He was running aftermarket upper a-arms that were like 1/4" longer than oem. This made the lower alignment camber adjustment swing all the way out. this in effect extended the entire assembly out by 1/4". now add to that the fact that he was running oem coils w/ the arms that give more droop. that pulled the axle out of the joint even more. when he broke, he broke an INNER joint. can you say grenade? my opinion is that the arms allowed the axle to droop too much and also pushed the axle out so far at full droop that he began to lose contact area in the joint, putting all the pressure of the locked 5.29's and 35's on a smaller pressure point, eventually leading to failure. that's the main reason he got rid of the bling bling arms and used some modified oem arms.

more than anything, he's just tired of ifs. why is he going sas? because he can. because he knows how to do it himself. because he's wheeled the ifs to the extremes and knows that now he's limited by it. because he want's to stay on top of the pile and have a sas runner on 35's w/ only 3" of total lift. because he's schaefer and it will bring him notariety because everyone will be talking about the ifs king going sas. personally, i think it's answer #1: because he can.

 

SAS vs. locking front diff.

 

i understand all of that, i just want to know why he seems to think that chris's plan to run 35's is so much worse than his own....i know he has to be the big cheese, he is going SAS because of the SWANKY crew in arizona, they have mastered the spring under waggy SAS on their frontiers, hardbodies, and pathfinders. I understand that the IFS isn't optimum for 35's but i want to know what he views as the flawed point of Chris' plan. It seems that the only thing that Chris is doing different is avoiding the bling upper arms all together and running a bigger bodylift with a drivetrain lift. i mean a month ago when steve debuted his masterpiece chopped factory arms that was the ultimate set-up.

 

i know what you're saying... i think it might have more to do w/ conversations and messages between them when steve has revealed that the ifs is weaker than a D30, and yet chris is still treading down that path, making all the time steve's spent answering q's now worthless from his viewpoint.

just my $0.02

 

well that makes some more sense then. i am interested to see how long my cv unlimited shafts last with the manual hubs. i am sure this is a stepping stone for me but i won't be cutting the IFS off after my first broken shaft. it isn't practical now, one day it will be and i will do it because i want to probably more than anything.

 

steve probally got jabbed at a little bit when the shaft snapped, forcing him over the "edge" of going sas no matter what.

 

Steve may have been more likely to break axles b/c of the crawler, over 200:1 produces a ton more torque than the factory crawl ratio. In my opinion, Chris should be less likely to break anything than Steve b/c he will not be locked and will not have all the gear reduction torque from crawler. I think Chris's main problem is going to be the weight of the Swampers spinning and then catching traction and that will be the big question as to what if anything will break. And hey if it does, so what, people have broken axles on 32's with no locker. (I'll be there to help you out Chris )But, I don't know the whole story here either. Chris is trying something new so I applaud him for that and Steve is going SAS so I applaud him for that too.

 

Ah, gotcha! I'll go with a locking diff over a SAS, but that's just me, to a point of course.

Chris

 

I think you're probably right on here. His time and questions that he's answered hasn't been a waste of time to me, but if he feels that way, I'm sorry.

Chris