Light Duty Axle Upgrades

[Razorfish]

Regarding light duty stock axles. i.e. AMC20 , Dana 30 or 35. I keep seeing comments about these not being very strong. They're fine for light offroad but not for larger tires or more aggressive offroad, and some comments about them likely to break. What exactly would be expected to break?

Just theotecical but a rear upgraded with heavy duty axles, a spool and possibly aftermarket gears. Would this be a good choice? These probably won't make a light duty axle as strong as a Dana 44 /60 but would it be a significant upgrade over stock? Or is the housing itself a weak point or something else I haven't thought of?

I understand by upgrading an axle it just moves the weak point in the chain move downstream to something like u-joint, but for the purpose of this discussion I'm just wondering about the axle.

thanks,
Mike

 

[Old Dog]

IMHO the weak points in the Dana 30 are the small axle u-joints, small 27 spline axles and the small ring & pinion.
The AMC20 has thin axle tubes and stock 2 piece axles. With 1 piece axles and a truss it's as good as any Dana 44 .
That being said I have beat on my 20 with 1 piece axles and Dana 30 with aftermarket axles with the bigger u-joints with 33" tires for 6 years with no problems. I'm running 35's now which I consider as large as the axles can take.
The dana 35 is just junk, I've seen way to many broken axles going the same trails I was on.

 

[CJim7]

Mike,
The weak point on the rear corp20 is the 2-piece design. This is easily addressed with a 1-piece kit. The two other areas that need to be addressed on this axle are the thin walled axle tubes and the tendency of the tubes to spin at the housing. A truss and welding the axle tubes is the cure. The corp 20 has a larger R&P then a Dana 44 and shaft diameter is comparable. It's really not a bad axle and I run 36's on it without worrying.

The Dana 30 on the other hand takes a lot more work. It's all around weakness gets transferred from one part to another as each is upgraded. It has small ujoints, weak R&P, weak ball joints and inner C's...It's very difficult and expensive to upgrade a Dana 30 to run large tires.

 

[BajaEdition]

D 35 with the C clips is just junk, the older D35 is actually a good axle

I run D 30s in the front with moly axles and never have a problem, they are just great axles up to 33 inch tires, and that is wheeled hard, light duty I think 35s will work.
the Dana 20 has issues stock, but can be made into a great axle, no reason to swap it out when there is so much support for it and options for what to do.

Remember you are not planning to wheel hard and the axles you have under there have lasted this long, do not believe everything you read in magazines, the articles are written to sell products for advertisers. Unfortunately most guys get their tech from magazines so urban legend abounds. Using less skinny and a good build, a Dana 30 /Corp20 build will last you the life of that Jeep.

 

[1986cj7]

D 35 with the C clips is just junk, the older D35 is actually a good axle

I run D 30s in the front with moly axles and never have a problem, they are just great axles up to 33 inch tires, and that is wheeled hard, light duty I think 35s will work.
the Dana 20 has issues stock, but can be made into a great axle, no reason to swap it out when there is so much support for it and options for what to do.

Remember you are not planning to wheel hard and the axles you have under there have lasted this long, do not believe everything you read in magazines, the articles are written to sell products for advertisers. Unfortunately most guys get their tech from magazines so urban legend abounds. Using less skinny and a good build, a Dana 30 /Corp20 build will last you the life of that Jeep.

x2 I think the ACM 20 and Dana 30 get a undeserved bad rap. I've done the up grades that Baja has mentioned and I've had no trouble the only thing i haven't done is truss the AMC20 and weld the axle tubes to the diff. I run 33" and haven't had any trouble the only thing I don't do is alot of rock crawling if I would want to do alot of heavy duty rock crawling the ACM 20 will have to be trussed and welded.