So I wired and plumbed my compressor this week for the rear locker. First hard trail of the day and of course I snap a rear shaft. Thankfully I carry a full set of spare shafts and hubs ever since I went to 35s, so I drove it back to camp and swapped in the spare. Thankfully it broke right next to the hub so it was easy to grab the broken bit and pull it out. But I wanted to ask, what’s the consensus on driving with out a shaft? Obviously it made it to camp no problem, and I know the locker needs to be on to keep power going to the drive wheel, but how feasible is this? With the shaft being broken, weight normally supported by the diff is now supported by the hub and the 4 bolts on the housing. Could this be driven several hours home, take bumps, etc? Would a stub shaft need to be installed, or could the hub and brakes be reinstalled with no shaft and be driven? These axles being non full float but also non c clip makes me unsure of all of this. Any advice appreciated!

Also caved in my roof a little, just another battle scar! Been a ton of fun on the trip. After I swapped the shaft we kept wheeling and even with the locker I didn’t have any more issues. I wasn’t beating on it when it broke, I imagine it was just warn out from 200k miles and years of abuse.


Broken shaft next to the new one. Swapped the hub and shaft.