wayoflife

After blowing up our factory Dana 44 front axle earlier this summer, we decided to use the opportunity and make the well needed upgrade to a Dynatrac Pro Rock 60 with competition shafts. And, after our weekend run out on the Dusy, man am I ever glad that we did.



Even though our rear Dana 44 was beefed up with a set of prototype Superior 35 spline chromoly shafts, we suspected that it might not be up to the task of running bigass Toyo 40x15.50's and so all summer long, we tried to make a concious effort to go easy on the skinny pedal. But, after running 8 demanding trails in about 5 weeks, the abuse we put it through prooved to be just a little too much for our 2 month old 5.38 ring and pinion and as luck would have it, we blew it out about 2/3's into the Dusy Ershim.





With the trail slick from rain and some of the hardest rock obstacles still to come, the thought of getting out and off the trail and under my own power (Front 2WD ONLY) wasn't looking too good or, at least not without having to work my front axle and extremely hard. Even under the best of conditions and without being handicap, the last leg of the Dusy can be a real challenge and if it weren't for the fact that we had a Pro Rock 60 to help us out, I don't think we would have been able to or, at least not very easily anyway.

In the end, I found myself laying into the gas more than I'd normally feel comfortable doing and much to my pleasant surprise, our 40" Toyo's bit into the rocks and pulled us up and through all but one obstacle and our Pro Rock 60 never let us down. Here are a few pics that we snapped as we made our way to the end of the Dusy....







Of course, getting our JK off the trail is one thing but, being that we drive it everywhere as opposed to trailering it, how to get it home was the next issue we needed to deal with. But, after some discussion, we decided to just pull the rear drive shaft and try to drive it back all 350+ miles on front wheel drive alone. If you've never done this before, let me just say that it can be a bit funky to do especially if you have big fat tires and have to drive on twisty windy mountian roads like we had to. But, once again, our Pro Rock 60 was up to the task and brought us all the way back and safely home.

I get questions from people all the time asking why we decided to go with a Dynatrac Pro Rock 60 as opposed to a 60 of another make and up until now, my best answer was that the Pro Rock 60 came highly recommended by people I trusted and from what I had seen, was tougher than nails. Of course now that I have seen in person how they are made, the quality and craftsmanship that goes into the making of each one of them, the fact that they are made 100% here in America and most importantly, how much abuse they can take on the trail, I can say from personal experience that the Pro Rock 60 is an outstanding axle and one that is worth every penny.

While on the Rubicon a few weeks back, a guy in a very nice rock buggy saw our JK coming up and over a ledge and enthusiastically yelled out....

"Hey! Now that's a fancy axle. You don't have a Jeep - you have a rig!!"

Unquestionably, I would recommend a Pro Rock 60 to anyone who's running 37" tires or larger and actually uses their JK like they should.