05 defender rear axles

[canucks]

Well the time has come to replace the rear axles in the defender, due to excessive movement.

What aptions are out there, and what is best.

Have heard maxidrive thrown around a bit.

Thanks

[ugu80]

Maxidrive are now Hi Tough Engineering (usually have HTE stamped on their stuff), good Aussie company. If you are going to do the axles get the drive flanges as well.

The other popular replacement is the English Ashcroft mob, but very pricey. Ashcroft are fond of citing a test where their axle needed twice as much torque to start to deform than the Hi Tough axle. I wondered why they cited twisting and not breaking. I did a search and found the actual test they quote from and why they cite twisting and not breaking was that it took more force to break the Hi Tough axle, the Ashcroft snapped first. I take it that the Hi Tough must be a more spring steel.

[uninformed]

Ashcroft are made from 4340 chromoly steel

Hi-Tough Eng. are made from AMS 6418 or "Hytuf".

They are both very good and close enough to each other its becomes "in theory". Though many a beer could be had arguing over which is better. ;)

I have supported both companies and they are about the the best world wide for LR products and customer service. Both will see my $$ as long as a LR is owned by me.

[ugu80]

I did some arithmetic on the figures I found and the High Tough needed just over 7% more torque to break than the Ashcroft. There was no mention of how far it actually twisted before breaking. The only question between the two I can think of is what effect the Hi Tough would have on other components if it was twisted under load then unloads and springs back into shape. I would surmise the tyres would unload a lot of the energy.