Thread: Salisbury shaft upgrade needed with Detroit?

I ran a Detroit in a Salisbury in my Stage 1 the original shafts survived quite well.
As a precaution I bought some brand new genuine shafts (got them cheap) within 3 Months I twisted them badly.
I went to Maxi Drive and never had another issue.
My suggestion is upgrade them if one breaks it can take out the Detroit

A TD5 130CC I looked at years ago had broken one or two axles with its open diff under it's NSW NPWS life. (info from the dealer who did the replacements)

One good thing with the Hi Tough/Maxi axles is that the spline at the drive flange end is longer than stock (I think the X versions are standard these days ?) and the drive flanges are much tougher. (4140?)

i fitted maxi drive axles 160 000 km ago and there is zero wear to date.....i have a rear arb locker which has been used seriously only a few times but enaged plenty of time just to protect tracks

Great. From what I can gather, the damage would only be done if you continue to drive once pinging a shaft. Parts are available for the Detroits so I'd b half tempted to run it with standard shafts and see how I go... At the moment, the Td5 is not a huge demand on an axle, and when on rock a lighter right foot can only mean money saved! Itll be a different story with a Td42.. Who supplies Maxi Drive shafts here? Are they silly money? I remember fitting a Detroit into my 101 in the UK and couldn't get over how big the shafts were!!! Cheers all!

quite a few agents about M R Automotive is one..........however i think you can buy direct from Hi-Tough but buggered if i can find his number

when i brought mine there was two option for the other spline lenght, i went the longer

IMHO the sals axles are fine to be used with lockers with the engine they come fitted for when the engine is in standard tune.

upping the power (torque really) and adding a locker to a sals means upping the axle strenght

Some points to consider: The Sals 24 spline in your defender (the one in your avitar im guessing??) is the same size and type as in the front Rover diff...assuming your defender is newer than 1994. The axle shafts in your old FC101 are bigger again and only common to those FC101, along with the 5.XX-1 Ring and pinion they have....

So your Rover and Sals shafts are equal strength.....well almost if you take length into consideration.

Maxidrive shafts are now called Hi-Tough Engineering. M R Automotive own the naming rights to all the other Maxidrive stuff. They do sell Hi-Tough shafts.

Barry, owner and operator of Hi-Tough Engineering use to work for Maxidrive making the axle shafts there with Mal Storey. When Mal retired Barry took over the Shaft and drive flange side of things.

I fitted the Detroit to my County a couple of years ago with some Terrafirma drive flanges (mainly got sick of the plastic caps).
No busted axles yet and its seen a reasonable amount of offroad in that time.

I must admit that I was a bit concerned about the axles as I was skull dragging a 2WD rodeo up a steep rocky/rutted hill during a recovery last year, but nothing went ping.
I will likely upgrade at some stage but I don't see it as a priority, more a case of bringing them up to the same standard as other components I'm running.

Drive flange issues aside, breaking a standard Sals axle seems to be rare, and the "if you do you'll also wreck the Detroit" situation seems to be of almost mythical status. If anyone has a link to someone reporting it actually happened to their landy I'd love to have a read.

Steve