Lol, good thing I never said I'd eat chit huh? Anyway, what did that come off of and what year and what engine power? I built mine from 60's and 70's muscle cars, and they were solid. I did hear that they had problems later on down the road and Chrys ditched them at one point. None the less, I'll take one of those or a Moser Dana M60 or Ford M9" any day and I doubt very seriously we'll see a pinion shaft snapping on either. Not to mention, these arent race cars, they're a measly 400 hp truck...it's uncommon. That pinion in the pic is broken at the gear and not in the middle of the shaft like on the truck in this topic. The one in the pick could have broke because of anything, bad adjustment, wear, bearings and so on...I would have to guess the alignment somehow got off and caused the break....possibly bad ring gear bearings. You snap an axle because it's not strong enough for the race car so you go with stronger axles. That tells me that the shaft was weak from the start. I don't have to guess when I see a 4'th gen pinion shaft snapped directly in half and knowing these nuts come loose as the reason....all of this is just my opp of course.

 

No idea, not mine just a random picture from Pirate 4x4. Pretty easy to break stuff when you upgrade the axles run 100:1 final ratios with big tires.

I break stuff with a 2.5L and 100:1 that you can't break in a drag car with 800hp. Its all about the torque and what decides to break first.

Just for grins, these are a couple axle shafts that I pulled out of my last jeep that had a whopping 100HP but plenty of torque.

 

Look like litte Dana 40's to me...what are they? btw, where are these axles made...I google searched earlier to check about chineese parts and coulkd only find jeep relateds chineese parts with conflicting answers? I thought I saw some were made in China

 

They are Dana 41

As far as I know ZF axles for Chrysler are made in Michigan

 

I'm into off-roading as well, I understand that. I see rigs with the low-box STaK case breaking stuff all the time.

We run a 850HP injected motor w/ 4.88 and 1.80 low's and we're lucky that a pinion nut is all we've had go haywire (that said, we're on our 5th torque convertor, second transmission case, and second engine block...at the end of last year we cracked the block in 3 places [cylinders 7, 8, and the #3 main], cracked the bellhousing in 2 places, and cracked the case right above the drum/band). We're going to a 1,000HP motor next year and i don't know what we're doing out back for next year...probably 4.10 or 4.30.

I still say the OP had a material defect. It sheared too cleanly.

And this is an axle snap.

 

I agree 100%, but I think knowing that the nut comes loose I would have to think it could have helped it. What bothers me to no end is WHY these nuts are coming loose...heat, expansion, retraction...softness of the metal? I've seen a case where the 4'th gen camshaft cam lobes were defected (pitted) but don't remember where it was made....metal was tested and found to be soft so NOTHING would surprise me about the parts on these trucks. I think that if you put a quality rearend together with the proper shim adjustments it will last ten times the norm...these open rears are not quality. Out of all of these rearends coming loose or breaking none are the LDS carriers. That in itself should make a statement about how cheap these parts are on the open rears. If there are any LSD units breaking it is unheard of on the forums... I think? Why are they different, I don't know but it surely seems Chrys gets them from a better source. As far as the axles in the pics go, they look thin and the spline (10 or 12) looks old style and weaker than the norm 25 to 35 spline but not so sure. Plus, look how rough the axle itself is, that's not typical of a quality axle...it should be a smooth finish all the way up the shaft. I've snapped more axles than I have busted rearends because I drove lockers and welded spider gear setups frequently on the streets. I broke axles just making turns at a crawl because the car wants to go straight and inside tire wants to spin but sometimes can't. I also boke more ujoints doing the same thing, driving careful trying not to break anything. Strenghtening one part weakens the other. My wife broke of a set of lug nuts off a Dana 60 on our 67 Camaro because of loose or missing lug nuts. I would think that even our hemis with only 400 hp and lockers with slicks you could snap even one of these LSD axles if the tire could not spin while driving around in a circle...something then has to give. So if you're four wheeling with huge 35's or 37's on a small Dana setup...44 or what ever they are, (they're not 60's) and lockers you could very easily brake something. I don't four wheel but I'd be saving up for some Currie Rock Crawler dana 60's if I did... for Jeep anyway. Judging from all of Old Jeeps pics, I don't think I could afford to line all of his toys with Curries though, lol.

 

Thought you guys might enjoy this. 3rd gen

 

Wow...looks like the housing could have gave way first. And not just around the front pinion area, the top rear of the housing looks all busted up. I use to watch failed truck pull vids and saw one with a guy in a Dodge fold a big Chevy truck right in half and kept dragging it. I don't think he knew he was killing the guy in the Chevy...looked like it but they all walked away. It was one time I bet the Chevy guy had wished his rearend would have given out. Both trucks had like 6' tall tires, they prolly weighed more than the trucks, lol. EDIT: I just found that utube video and it was a Ford that folded up the Chevy...not sa Dodge. I've seen it 4 or 5 times and it still has me laughing.