Now I've done it. I just bent my rear axle for the third time. This time though the machinist that I take it to laughed at me when I asked him to straighten it. It was bent so bad that I can't get the brake hub off. Anyway now I am in the market for a new rear axle. What is everyone's opinion of Rad's titanium axle and durablue's axle. They are the only two companies that I know of who make a aftermarket axle. The stock is just not strong enough. I am willing to spend the money for the rad, but I have to know that it won't break. I can get a stock for $290 and a druablue for about the same. Any opions and experience would be appreciated.

Justin

 

pm azsand he has the rad rear axle and it seems there is another, azsands seems tuff but we weren't jumping when i rode with him.

 

dsracer666 has one I think. He gives it hell, he'd be your best bet on finding out it's durability.

 

BajaIowa,

It was nice meeting you at LS. To bad we did not get to do any rideng. Would have love to watch you get some big air!

On the axle, I would not recomend the durablue.

I would recomend getting the suspension set up for your weight and rideing style. This will help out on the axle! Also, make sure you have good tire pressure for landing the big jumps. And last thing, land on all four tires at the same time while giving it gas. I know this sounds stupid, but, it will help.

On the titanuim axle, you will have to buy new hubs and brake rotar, and sprocket holder.

If you do buy the ti axle, Let me know what you are going to do with your hubs

DuneDevil

 

The rear suspension is cranked all the way up. Full compression and full preload. I usually end up bending my axle when I catch a pothole just shy of the lip on the landing. Our MX track is not taken very well care of and that is most of the reason. Either that or a 800 lb combined weight hitting a hole in forth gear at 7000 rpm might have something to do with it also. But probably not.

Justin

 

I handle titanium at work and have bent one inch bars almost into a u hanging 19,000lbs in the middle of a three foot bar. They will spring back to 99% straight. Ti is a flexible spring like metal. We also make nickel-titanium which is used for cell phone antenaes and spendier glasses frames. If you could get it to bend at all which I doubt it will surely come back to straight. I'd say that the rad axle could be gun drilled hollow and still take more than you could give it. With the hubs and carriers it's $1000 though. I'm all for titanium, it's almost as light as aluminum, a zillion times stronger and there are only a couple of substances in the world that can corrode it.

 

Well, that sucks. I called Rad this morning and asked them about their axles and told them my situation. They said the would strongly recommend that I DON'T buy the titanium axle[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-frown.gif[/img]. I appreciate their honesty and not to sell me something that I would not be happy with, but now what do I do? They said that if I could bend a stock that easily, that I would probably get over confident and jump really big and bend or break the RAD axle. They were worried that I would be unhappy when I broke the $1000 axle on the first day. If anyone has any other ideas, I would love to hear them.

Justin