who has bent a JK D44 tube or C???

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Rottwheeler
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who has bent a JK D44 tube or C???

Postby Rottwheeler » Wed Apr 18, 2018 9:10 am

So I've read all kinds of blogs and forum warnings about how easily JK OE D44 tubes and C's can be bent or broken. For all the chatter and after market trusses, gussets and replacement axle housings out there... it must happen all the time. But... I don't know anyone that it has actually happened to. Who here has actually seen this carnage first hand? Was it the result of high speed or hard pounding... or does it happen during careful finesse wheeling too? What size tires were involved? I'm thinking of 37"s on Rubicon like trails and am looking for real, personal experiences. Thanks for your help. :-)
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White 13' JKU Rubicon, 3.5" Rubicon Express Super Flex suspension, 3:73s, 35" Nittos on American Racing ATX black faux bead locks... for now.

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Yrjan
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Re: who has bent a JK D44 tube or C???

Postby Yrjan » Thu Apr 19, 2018 6:04 am

3 JK's all with 35-37" tires. never bent one yet. One of them was a Sahara with a polished turd (D-30) front end that I broke every which way possible but never a C or a Tube. I wheeled the piss out of that thing and never had that issue. Lance has been wheeling his for several years and I don't think he has had an issue yet either.

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tobyw
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Re: who has bent a JK D44 tube or C???

Postby tobyw » Thu Apr 19, 2018 3:30 pm

You wheel a JKU. By default you also clearly have access to several credit cards and lines of credit at every single online parts supplier that sells widgets for them. You are obligated to buy every single such widget and bolt it on (JK guys can’t weld, sorry), and proceed directly to the nearest patch of dirt and immediately break your front axle. These are the internet rules for JK’s, it’s all pretty clearly spelled out somewhere around page 4 of the manual if memory serves…

Internet reality being what it is, I’m also one of the apparent minority who has successfully piloted a couple different JK’s over a dirt road or two with no signs of failure, other than a catastrophic ring and pinion failure that I cannot even try to blame on anything but the poor connection between the throttle pedal and the driver’s seat :oops: . Is the JK front axle the TJ-esque Dana 35 ticking time bomb of the 2007-2018 JK Wrangler era? Perhaps, but let’s take a few things into consideration here:

• The JK platform, and particularly the JKU, ushered in an entirely new group of wheelers to our little world. The vast, and I do mean vast, majority of these fine people had never experienced any type of wheeling before, and the learning curve associated with that is bound to be full of broken parts and dreams

• As all those “newbies” were learning to drive, some maybe even ignoring the sage advice offered by the leaf spring driving duffers, the internet was exploding with bulletin boards and forums and social media outlets just begging to be filled with tales of woe. No one likes to sit around reading about how well other’s junk works – we want carnage!! So most of what we hear about is the bad news

• In referencing the TJ Dana 35, we need to look back at just how terrible that thing really is. Or is it? Sure we probably all know somebody that knows a guy that has a sister-in-law who’s third cousin’s neighbor snapped an axle shaft and drove home with a Hi-Lift jack handle strapped to the frame to keep the tire/axle assembly from walking sideways out from under the Jeep. But again, in purely statistical terms, it’s an incredibly low rate of failure. Shoot I know a couple people that wheel harder on Dana 35’s than most people wheel period (JAFO is the anomaly in this scenario, he just breaks $h!t), and I can’t recall any of them ever being a trail plug

The bottom line is, from my perspective, if you have your wits about you and fully understand and respect your machine, you will likely get years and years of dutiful service from it. But if you drive it like you stole it, you should expect some collateral damage without taking the proper steps to mitigate that sort of abuse. The simple act of installing larger tires and running harder trails doesn’t default you to a disastrous scenario, but it does require you to understand and respect what you’ve done and where you are. And the last time we shared dirt road and beef jerky, you had that pretty well at hand…

Now, all that said, I do tend to err on the side of caution. Things happen. And knowing that you are going to be putting additional strain on a “known weak link” is, effectively, asking for trouble. With that in mind, I would have to suggest taking a pretty serious look at a truss system. I’m not overly convinced that knuckle gussets are necessary, but I have seen enough evidence of axle housing failures that I’d sleep better with something added there for the sake of peace of mind. Couple that with your specific need for a raised trac bar mount in order to utilize some parts you’ve already got on hand, and something like the Artec truss kit just makes all around good sense in my opinion.

Now whip out that JK edition Member’s Only VISA and get more widgets coming. The Rubicon awaits 8)
Yep, I've wheeled one of those, too...
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SPR
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Re: who has bent a JK D44 tube or C???

Postby SPR » Thu Apr 19, 2018 6:38 pm

Nice write up Toby... entertaining.
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tobyw
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Re: who has bent a JK D44 tube or C???

Postby tobyw » Thu Apr 19, 2018 7:16 pm

Thank you, sir. I do what I can :lol:
Yep, I've wheeled one of those, too...

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Yrjan
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Re: who has bent a JK D44 tube or C???

Postby Yrjan » Fri Apr 20, 2018 9:13 am

HAHA! great read Toby! I am now wheeling a D35!

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Rottwheeler
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Re: who has bent a JK D44 tube or C???

Postby Rottwheeler » Sun Apr 22, 2018 11:45 am

SPR wrote:Nice write up Toby... entertaining.

He was certainly on a roll there... :-)
Rottwheeler
White 13' JKU Rubicon, 3.5" Rubicon Express Super Flex suspension, 3:73s, 35" Nittos on American Racing ATX black faux bead locks... for now.


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