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Catch All Ring Gear Screw Breakage Thread

W

whitrzac

Rock Crawler
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
697
Location
Dells
I've seen a few posts here and there about breaking the 3 screws that hold the ring gear to the spool.

Who's had this happen?
About how many hours of run time on the screws?
Threadlock? Red or blue?
Tool used to tighten them? IE: L wrench, hudy, MIP, etc.

Looking at mine, I have a going theory that the screws ether are not tight enough or loosen up over time. Slop in them allows the gear to slam the screws back and fourth until they break. Similar to how 1/1 wheel studs can break from under torquing the wheel.
 
I have broken a bunch. I was a fool and did not loctite them. Once they loosened a bit, exactly what you are thinking happened. Have since blue loctited them and no issues.

Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk
 
I have broken 2 screws total. They were installed with the blue thread locker that comes in the kit, and I used my trusty bit driver to install them. I noticed an issue going on when my diff gears started to make a clicking noise. This was also only in the front diff. Rear has never had an issue. I opened the diff and found two bolts broken and the remaining bolt loose. I replaced them with new stainless bolts and used red locktite on them. Haven't had an issue since, but the damage done to the gears will still allow it to skip a tooth or two under heavy binds in reverse only. I would guess that I had anywhere from 100-120 hours on it when it failed.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
 
Stainless was a bad choice. Stainless by nature, is softer than most standard grades of steel.
 
Well either the screws are to soft and they stretch from high axle torque. The stretch makes the screws loosen till they ultimately fail.

OR

They are to hard and brittle and snap from a sudden shock in the drive train. They shatter like glass.
 
It's not really a matter of hard or soft. Stainless vs mild steels are basically the same hardness. It's shear and tensile strength that is the issue. Stainless screws are only as strong as low grade steel screws - but stilll maybe better than the screws axial are using. Much higher tensile strength steel screws are available. As advised elsewhere here, i replaced mine with some 12.9 grade screws. They are almost twice the strength of a stainless screw.

As witrzec says, we are not running enough torque to simply shear the screws.

I still think that the screws are breaking after over tightening. I think they stretch and crack, or stretch and become loose. The fact that loctited ones will still break or become loose supports this idea. I could be wrong. Screws not overtightened and loctited should be fine by this theory. Stick some high tensile screws in there, crank them down with loctite and you are good to go either way!
 
Last edited:
Well y'all can say what you want about stainless screws being a bad idea, but I haven't had an issue since I put them in. I'm going with the idea of the screws backing out and becoming loose. On mine they were broken flush where the gear and locker meet. I've seen this happen with flex plate bolts on 1:1 trucks before. Also the the broken end of the screws were very easy to remove from the locker, which makes me doubt the quality of the thread locker that axial supplies. It is possible that over tightening could crack the screws, but in my experience with axial screws, the hex will strip out before the screw cracks or breaks.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
 
i beat the crap out of my rtr 10.2, been running it on traxxas vxl and 3s lipo setup while waiting for some cash to get new electronics, just to see how durable it is, the only thing that happened is i twisted the splined mid section of the front driveshaft into a pretty pretzel shape.

although on the latest ground up rebuild i did install 12.9 screws and vp lockers, just cuz i was there. "thumbsup"
 
With screws this small and especially since there's only three of them, 12.9 grade is a must. I get mine from Amain for 3-4 bucks a pack so I can get several sizes. I'm running stock spools and VP spools and I've replaced all stock hardware with 12.9. No issues since. I use the same screws in my AR60 spools also. After breaking my first one of these little screws on a Yeti front locker, I decided to fix the issue for good.
 
Vanquish locker here, i broke all my screws, front and rear:

1eb9lt.jpg

2uysuu9.jpg


I abuse pretty hard my rig and it has a ROC412 so it wasn't a total surprise when i found out they were broken, but in my Wraith it never broke one of those, i just ordered the 12.9 screws to see how they will hold up, and now i need to try to remove the loctited remainings from the spool's thread
 
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