From what I can see in the first pic, it looks more like protection for the diff lock actuator and is not what I would call bracing.
Having never examined a sals with maxidrive, I might be missing what you are describing.
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John, see my ammended pic. A sals tube doesnt have any weld seem along its length. Im guessing this is an external lamination.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/
Thanks, I see what is meant now. But I don't like what I see.
The mode of failure that should be expected from too many overload cycles is as seen in the first pic from the OP. A fatigue crack at the point where there is a large stress raiser due to the abrupt change in stiffness.
IMHO the only satisfactory way, if the axle is required to handle worse loading conditions, is to increase the wall thickness of the axle tube and thus reduce the magnitude of the cyclic stress, in the region of the stress raiser.
That lamination is outside the region of the stress raiser, so doesn't help at all there, but in addition has added a weld that is too close to the stress raiser and therefore increases the stress raising effect, i.e. 2 stress raisers combined.
Designing for fatigue is often difficult and it is not unusual to see changes made with good intentions backfire. The nature of fatigue is that failure is hard to predict because of the large statistical variation in the fatigue life over a number of seemingly identical components and loading histories.
A few failures worldwide by overloading or abuse is to be expected.
compared to the thousands of Banjo housed diff failure numbers, keeping the Sals under my 110 is a no brainer.
I used to fit MaxiDrives for club members, never had any such failures, not sure that the failure in the early post can be attributed to the MD.
I could only find one folded Jeep rear end on google, and it turns out it failed because of a DIY axle swap, (the guy actually swapped left for right tubes so he could turn his diff over for a SOA conversion
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...13/06/1173.jpg
even this is frought with potential issues if worked 'hard'. i have seen a ( fitted to the front) tru track'd D44 in a CJ J**p with thicker tubes fitted go on to break the casting housing where the tubes go in....:( had a heavy cast iron engine over the top of it and was spending a bit of time getting air.
Not everyone drives sympathetically, maybe that is most of the problem.
jc
If you are breaking Sals housings, probably best not to bandaid them and step up to a real housing:
NEW AXLE!! Sixty9 - Page 31 - Pirate4x4.Com : 4x4 and Off-Road Forum
To add to the pictures:
I cracked the front housing on my D1 whilst on a trip from the UK to mongolia and middle east. I am not sure if it had been damaged previously but it 'went' whist driving on a main road in Siberia. Nicely sealed for the most part then 100m stretch that looked as though it had been subject to carpet bombing.
We limped about 50km to the next truck stop the piggy-backed a ride to the closest town. Not the easiest when we spoke about 2 words of Russian between us!
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...13/06/1010.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...13/06/1011.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...13/06/1012.jpg