Algunos puntos sobre calidad de ejes de los distintos fabricantes (extracto de foros 4x4 USA):
Superiors shafts are by far the best. The shafts are machined from 1541H carbon alloy forgings(which they make themselves in Los Angeles, California and are induction hardened after splining.
Mosers splines are cut hard after heat treating.
If you know anything about induction hardening, it is basically a thick case hardening, with a surface hardness of about 58 - 60 rc and as it penetrate into the diameter of the shaft the material gets softer (58, 55, 53, 48,..etc) until you get to about 20% of the diameter where you reach the raw bar stock hardness of about 20rc. If you machine splines after heat treating you are essentially taking away heat treat and creating a greater potential for spline twisting. also induction hardening is great for torsion and fatigue.
Buyer beware that junk is fawk'd up. His first batch (from india) was friction welded 4140 flanges to 1045 bars. Basically a 2 piece axle. Those of you that don't know what 1045 is, basically it what they made axles out of back in the begining of the auto up through the 70's. Now used as tool steel. It is a lower carbon steel and cannot achieve the same consistent heat treating that 1541 can. His current stuff is forged now but it is still inferior made in india junk. If you do go the Randy's Ring and Pinion route you will see what i mean as soon as you open the box. Randy is inconsistent with everything he does.
Manufacturing process of these axles.
Currie, Moser, Strange and Dutchman buy axle blanks that are pre-machined and pre heat treated, some from foote axle. They just cut the axle to length, cut the splines hard on a mill, machine the flange and drill the wheel bolt pattern. So your axle has gone through two different shops, and chucked in a lathe and re-centered a few extra times, your bound to get more run-out and inconsistencies after is had been manufactured twice.
When you bought your Superior axles, the bearing journals were ground after it was splined, heat treated and straightened, it was a finished part when left the first manufacturer.
As a side note, I would recommend Currie for the custom axles when they can do them, I know for a fact that Currie gets their axle blanks with finished bearing journals, they only machine the ends.
Moser buys more unfinished blanks and machines the bearing journals after heat treat, that means they are cutting heat treated material off of the axle and could end with a shallow case depth, kinda like the Yukon axle but probable not that bad). Basically, Currie buys many different axle blanks, one for each bearing and offset, Moser only buys a few, and machines the axle to fit different bearings and offsets.
Saludos,
Mario
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