bigjeepguy said:
Lol, I was surprised it took as long as it did for someone to catch the thread date. I just hate it when you find a thread that sounds interesting, or a thread with a similar question to what you are looking for, only to find nothing has been resolved.
What I was really hoping for was actual number as to the strength of the rockwell shafts vs. 60 shafts; u-joints not included.
I would say that from "my own experience" that the rockwell shafts are stronger as I have never broken one and I broke a ton of 60 front shafts in the same vehicle that now has rockwells.Certainly it is possible to break a rockwell shaft as there are many people who have and I have personally witnessed a shaft failure although not in my vehicle. Back in 2001 when I presented this thread it was mistekenly common for people to say the shafts were "weak". At that time most people who had experience with them were monster truck builders or people who wanted pseudo-monster trucks. The people in the actual monster truck areas had already long abandoned them for numerous reasons besides suppossed weak shafts. It is true that OLDER style shafts that hold the old Rezepa and Bendix joints are brittle. However, the u-joint style shafts are hardened just like 60 shafts. In todays world common breakage of rockwell shafts often times is related to vehicles with lots of motor and 48 inch plus tires. If you want break a rockwell shaft fast slap a set of 52-54's on a pair of rockwells with a motor that can turn them over..Although it is possible to break them with 44's I think we all know nothing is unbreakable.
From this we could conclude that if someone like Steve Gerstner knew what type of material a rockwell shaft was made from then the question you asked could be answered as the material of a stock dana shaft has been covered here before. In the end it is likely academic as real world wheeling, at least for me and people I know running them in this part of the world, have already answered the practical/functional side to this question.
For fun what would be interesting to know is what is the breaking point for a TRB MAchine shaft or an Ouverson Enginering shaft and if anyone has managed to break one either in rockracing or in the mud world.
