Tell that to people with toxic dry wall, toxic toothpaste, kids with lead coated toys, dogs/cats that have died from toxic animal food, and babies who got sick from formulas and milks! I can go on! really? Theres no comparison to goods made here in North America! Get on board or start speaking mandarin round eye! LOL!

:icon_starw ars:

 

Yea, but the problem rolltidehemi is you can't find much made in the USA any longer. We pretty much gave up our manufacturing base in the 80's.

 

And thats why our economy is hurting so bad. To be prosperous you need to keep as much as possable 'IN HOUSE". I don't want to get started on a rant about limiting imported anything. But building your own anything from scratch and seling it back to ourselves has always been the ticket to being 'prosperous'.

 

Just to try to bring this back on topic. From what I can tell, Dodge 9.25 gears are made in the USA so all of the china talk is a waste of time.

 

AAM? I thought ZF. AAM is the bigger stuff but the 1500s I was pretty sure its ZF. I run into ZF employees once in a while who talk about how many diff/axel assembly's they produce for Ram 1500s.

 

I edited it - AAM produces the 9.25 front end gears, not the rears. The ZF 9.25's are in 2010.5 and up Rams

 

Sorry pal, but my input on here is not for you alone to judge as a waste of time, there are parts on these trucks that are made in China...period. The pinion nut has given countless people trouble by coming loose and causing severe damage. I brought it up because I know for a FACT that I saw in this very forum DEFECTED tie rod ends were the result of them coming apart. I simply stated that I couln't remember if it was because it was a bad batch that was made in China. This could very well be the reason for the pinion to snap in half. As a matter of fact I'd almost be willing to bet that had it not come loose it prolly wouldn't have snapped whether it was made in the USA or not. I've put 8.75 chunks, 9.25, and Dana 60's with lockers, posi's and welded spider gears up against 800 hp engines and have NEVER seen a pinion snap in half. Even when tearing up sets of welded spider or ring gears the pinion always stayed in tact. Now old jeep I know you've been through several rearends with your 4X4's according to what I've seen you say. Now tell me you've seen a pinion shaft snap in half before and I'll eat dirt. I have NEVER had anyone build my rearends for me EVER. I built my own personal adjustable jigs and axle bearing tools and could build any decent rearend Chrys made on them and I could even mod my funky chrs axle bearing using Fords to withstand more hp. So even though I may be totally wrong about the pinion or nut, I deserve a little credit here about my input. No pun intended but you are NOT the only rearend specialist on here. You built 4X4's, try hooking up with a set of 21" drag slicks and see how long your rearend builds last...mine gave me little trouble considering I was experimenting half the time. EDIT: and that doesn't count my Chevy 12 bolt and Ford 9" builds. EDIT AGAIN: or any of my many driveshaft and ujoint mods

 

You don't have to eat dirt, but its not really that uncommon to snap a pinion shaft in half on an off-road or drag vehicle. Its the whole reason they make aftermarket 35 and 40 spline pinions for the 9" , Dana 60 and 14 bolt.

This doesn't have anything to do with the OP's problem though - probably just a material defect in that particular pinion.

This one is a Dana 60

 

Sometimes I wonder why they don't still use Danas in the lower weight trucks....They go back to the KISS method....only way to really break one is to royally screw up putting it together. The pinion nut on the camaro (D60) came loose because it wasn't loc-tited, pinion started slopping around, ect. All it did was chip the outer 1/4" of the ring gear all the way around- could have easily filed the sharp edges off and re-used the gear, but we replaced them to be safe.

 

Dana was a warranty,falling apart,breaking nightmare before the change over to AAM and ZF. Huge quality issue. Much worse then this pinion issue.