g'day I'm Brett i'm at M.R. Automotive in Redcliffe Queensland home of Maxi Drive
products i'm here to have my front axle completely rebuilt to improve strength
reliability and off-road traction performance so let's take a look now at
some of the upgrades i'll be doing on the front axle it will include a
conversion of the axles from 10 spline to 24 spine Maxi Drive units the
installation of a Detroit TrueTrac limited slip diff changing from the
later CV's to earlier one tonne Landrover a AEU2522's which are the
strongest Landrover ever produced and also changing the drive flanges to Maxi
Drive drive flanges which are made from better quality materials so let's go
through now each of these components now I'm upgrading from the 10-32 spine which
I have originally in the Land Rover front axle which one the worst
combinations produced by Land Rover and I'm changing to a 24-23 spline Maxi Drive unit now these are manufactured from aircraft material known as high
tough nickel chrome moly steel and heat treated to 1550 MPA so they work out
about 50% stronger than the original Land Rover axles so let's take a quick
look at the before and after to show you the differences between 10 spline and 24
spline half shafts so this is the original 10 spline unit and this is the
upgraded 24 spline so not only is the actual shaft diameter bigger than the 24
spine but there's more surface area around the spine region
so we take the measurements it works out at 28.23mm for
ten spline and 31.6 for a 24 spline so it's significantly bigger as well as the
stronger material ten splines have a history of the splines twisting or the
ends sheering off in the Diff due to the depth of the ten splines it
significantly reduces the maximum diameter or the core diameter of the
shaft which is where the weakness is introduced the 32 spline CV end has the
smallest diameter of all the shafts and is typically prone to the splines
shearing off due to their fineness or the end snaps off in the CV this is a
table of the half shaft and CV combinations they were produced so you
can get an idea as to what combination you are running in your vehicle the
county's up to mid 20L axle code had 10-23 My late 200tdi had 10-32 the
weakest spline combination produced from around 300 TDI onwards it changed to 24
32 but if you want the absolute strongest shaft you have to go
aftermarket to MaxiDrive Ashcroft Kam and among a few others to a 24
diff end 23 CV end most 200 TDI's should be able to convert to the earlier county
or Ashcroft CV's easily but for 300tdi onwards it's best to use an aftermarket
CV from Ashcroft or similar which have a later style CV built from stronger
materials but with a 23 spline input for the aftermarket shaft now the difference
in the material strength between standard 10 and 24 spline half shafts is
actually pretty minimal it was the design of the spline area which is
typically where the failures occur you can find the graph on Ashcroft
transmissions website showing breaking tests they did with the short 10 and 24
spline half-shafts showing that they both break around the same amount of
force applied although the amount of twist each can handle before failure is
quite different but by converting to aftermarket half-shafts
you're getting far superior material strength and the stronger 24-23 spline
combination this table I made shows the measurements of the shaft diameters
you can see these 32 CV end minor diameter is only 24.9
millimeters which is the smallest diameter of all the shafts compare that
to the Maxi-Drive 23 CV end shaft minor diameter of 28.5
millimeters which is still larger than all of the measurements of the original
ten spline shaft the CV's are being changed from the later RTC6862
to the earlier County one tonne army-style AEU2522's which are the
strongest Landrover ever produced you can see clearly here the difference in
the shaft diameter inputs the 32 spline and the 23 spline
I'm also upgrading the drive flanges to MaxiDrive drive flanges which have a
bit more spline area and made from stronger materials and can be used for
oil lubricated systems with a better sealing design with the steel cap
now I'm replacing the land rover 2 pin diff as its the pin which is a two pin
diff only has a single pin it's prone to cracking or snapping and the spider
gears can also crush and break off the housing can also wear out and where the
pin fits in it can ovalate and the pin can flog around inside so this is being
replaced with a Detroit TrueTrac limited slip diff
the Eaton Detroit Truetrac is an automatic torque biasing limited-slip
differential I chose this unit as it is a simple design using gears not clutch
packs it has no electronics or Airlines and doesn't need special oils the
unit requires no maintenance it will transfer up to 3.5 times more torque to
the wheel with greater traction when the opposite wheel is spinning thus helping
to drive the vehicle forward the downside of the design is if one wheel
lifts completely off the ground and has no resistance it acts like an open diff
but the unit can be tricked with some left foot braking to provide resistance
which will then help the wheel with traction continue to move forward the
differential is made with three helical worm gears and a side gear on each side
when traction is lost the helical worm gears are forced outwards into the
carrier producing friction it's this friction which reduces the spinning of
the spinning wheel and helps divert more torque to the wheel which still has
traction I chose this over a full locking differential as it's used 100%
of the time to provide greater traction compared to the two percent of times I
may actually need a full locking differential I've had a Detroit TrueTrac
installed in the rear axle for the last three years and it has performed
flawlessly I'm quite certain it has helped me not get bogged on a few
occasions so the downside of this upgrade is I have strengthened the rest
of the drive line so it will send strain to the weakest link which would now be
either the ring and pinion or the gearbox and transfer case which are more
expensive to fix obviously but I think this is unlikely as I am running
standard tires in my style of driving it's typically touring outback areas I'm
not doing rock crawling I'm not typically going any really
challenging tracks I'm just exploring so this should give me plenty of
reliability and I doubt there'll be any issues with failing components as I have
already rebuilt the gearbox transfer case in all the rear axle has already
been upgraded to MaxiDrive units so I think this is a rock-solid upgrade.
Okay my initial impressions just after the drive home the steering is a lot
more firmer in the return to center as I come out of a corner I can feel the
wheel wanting to come back a lot more strongly then what it previously did
but that seems to be fairly acceptable and also before I got the conversion
done I jacked up my front wheel I grabbed on the wheel and I turned it and
watched the prop shaft and I could move it from about 12 o'clock to around 1
o'clock positions so there's a fair bit of slop play before the prop shaft will
begin to move I've just done the same thing and I can literally move it about
one centimetre and the prop shaft moves so a lot of drive line slop has been
taken out which should be a really good thing the price it came in to around
4000 Australian dollars for the complete upgrade which included the diff the
axles drive flanges CV's and all the labor and other parts the bearings
sealing kits oil I feel that's a fairly reasonable price because I'm thinking
about reliability in remote areas so I can't afford to break down in the middle
of Australia particularly when I'm out exploring Western Australia which is
what I hope to intend to do fairly soon the distances are too vast and the cost
of recovery to get someone out all the way to collect my car and get me back to
safety is just way too much for it for instance if you break down in the middle
of the Simpson Desert you can expect to pay a starting recovery cost of ten
thousand Australian dollars and that's just the starting cost you have to have
that money available before they'll even turn on the engine on the recovery truck
to come out and get you so I think 4000 now is much more better than spending
ten thousand dollars later plus the costs of repairs to the car and plus
the danger to my life and those who come out to rescue me which could be you know
three four five days drive to get to where I am depending on where I'm
exploring at the time so that's for reliability and safety
I'm happy to spend that money now now please remember that I am a
Landrover enthusiast not a Landrover expert so the
information I've presented in this video although I've tried to research it the
best I can and present it as far as I know as accurately as I can there could
always be some incorrect information so do your own research and check all your
own part numbers chassis numbers against the specifications for different parts
so a special thanks to Blake and the team at M.R, Automotive for completing
the conversion and for allowing me access into their workshop to do some
filming. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe if you enjoyed this video.
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