I have an 88 Samurai, I've done alot of pretty rough trail riding and haven't had any failures with the stock axles. I run 31 TSL's and would like to go a size larger. I also am planning on a locker in the front end. My question for those of you that have more experience with the Samurai, as this is my first one, is the durability of the stock axles. I plan on a gear upgrade and fresh bearings too. If I'm gonna drop $1500.00 or so in the Samurai axles should I spend the extra $800 or $900 an up grade to Toyota axles? Alot of people I talk to say that is the hot setup but I'm not a hard core rock crawler, I do want durability though as it's no fun to break on the trail.

How much bigger are you going to go?

I run 33" tires happily, did for a long time with stock front birfield.  When I finally destroyed one I switched over to chromoly axles and have been happy since.  If your not breaking now then the chromo front and rear will probably be more then enough.

I was only planning on 32's or 33's. Where do you get your chromoly axles. I was hoping to keep the stock axles, I don't plan on adding any more power as the 1.3 is in good shape and works fine for my type of driving. Thanks

Trial Tough.  They have Chromoly for both the front and rear axles.  I think you can also order them through Low Range Off Road.

Thanks alot, that is the exact help I was looking for.

Lowrange orders the axles from trailtough I believe,  although I may be wrong.  you cant go wrong buying from either, the customer service at lowrange is amazing and actually friendly.   

Once again thanks. That's what I love about the 4 wheeling community is the helpfullness of everyone. I have some good axles and other parts coming, I'm hoping to head off parts breakage before it happens. Great sites to get parts from and good service.

Trial Tough.  They have Chromoly for both the front and rear axles.  I think you can also order them through Low Range Off Road.

Im thinking of the same, but my 88 Sammy is for rock crawling.  I want to keep my vehicle light so i kinda like the idea of stock axles. Trail Tough has the Chromoly's but Spider-trax makes a lifetime warrantied front axle shaft for $500, Roadless gear sells it.  I run 33's TSL and would like to have the ability to go to 35's some dayThe lifetime warranty just means they built the birfields stonger than the ring & pinion gear. what do you guys think, Chromloy, Spridertrax, or upgrade (if i upgrade it will be a CJ front and a chopped Vitara rear so i can keep my rims)?

The Trial Tough axles have a lifetime warranty as well, it's just that they will only replace them once.  They figure if you break one, it might be their fault.  If you break it twice, your doing something wrong. 

The following are my opinions from the build-up on my SJ-410:

How much power are you putting into the SJ?  Without more power or really low gearing your unlikely to break axles if your smart about driving.  The CJ axles aren't much stronger then the Suzuki axles stock and will require a lot more money to build up.  You will have to get new rims, but your talking about spending a grand or two setting up new axles so an extra 200 for wheels shouldn't be a bother.

A chopped Vitara rear isn't really worth it unless you are breaking rear ring gears.  The two times I have seen a rear end taken out the axle went first and then took out the gears with it.  Pretty neat trick though, the axle twisted off at the spline, spun the adjuster on the third member allowing the gears to move around and bind up and break.  The Vitara third does hang lower then the stock, so if you want less clearance at the pumpkin go for it. 

I did manage to crack a set of front gears.  But I didn't set those up, or install the ARB in them.  It was supposedly professionally done, but it happened 2 months after I bough the third member and the replacement gears have held up fine.  I blame setup, one of the problems of buying used parts.

This post is rather meandering but the way break axles can be broken down:

1)  To much power.

2)  To much gearing.

3)  Wedging the tire in somewhere, combine with 1 or 2.

4)  Backing up with the front end locked, usually with a wheel turned.  This will break CV's and Birfields.  One advantage of an ARB is you can unlock the front end to help avoid this problem.  But backing up is the weak point of these axles.

Now that all is said and done, you need to look at if building up Suzuki axles are worth it.  I like the Chromoly route because it's good enough and allows me to keep using my existing hardware.   But if your looking at spending $500 and 500 there then it might be better to spend a bit more and just go with Toyota to start out with.  Cause if you break them you can always throw in some Bobby Longs.

Thanks that is really helpful. i have the stock drive train, 6.5 gears in the Xcase, i have 3.7.3 and will eventually put 4.09 in the diffs. the most power i will have, if and when i do an engine upgrade, is a Tracker 2.0L but more realistically 1.6L 16v. I'm pushing towards the Chromoly's bc i dont want to start a snowball affect of money and mainly WEIGHT. I rig weighs 2,216 lbs and want to keep it close to that, i like driving it to work which means highway. i am going to stay open in the front but will eventually want to lock it. so what i gather from you is that a lincoln locker is no good.  i have a mini spool in the rear, how do the rear stock axles hold up w/o Chromoly's?. i leaning towards building up the stock, think it will be strong enough?

Unless it's mud only don't weld the front end.  With the short wheelbase it is nothing but trouble and almost impossible to drive down the road.