Well in the search to have the best of the best on my truck I have been looking at some of the new axle choices. Tonight I met with the owner of Tsais (pronounced Tase, like case but with a T) which is importing a Berg-like kit. I met him at Starbucks in Independence, Missouri and took apart his crawler right there on the spot.

Here is a quick summary of what I found.

New knuckle design, still works with Berg offset wheels. These are Eritex wheels.

You can see they changed the size of the flange that mounts to the gear case, the gear cases are about the same width.

Here is the turning ability, about the same as before which wasn't that great. I still have one Eritex beadlock installed here.

You can see in this picture that they DECREASED the size of the pin at the dog bone. Don't pay any attention to the grinding on this axle, the rest were all good.

This is just another overall shot of the two axles together, if you look close there is actually a difference in length. The necked down area is also smaller in diameter.

Another bummer, they changed the axle C's so we can't use the high steer knuckles we have anymore

Here is the new stub axle

The upper link mount is now machined in, so I know my current BTA won't work now.

Take a look at this new locker design :shock: Also the new bearing supports are in the axle tube, very weird! You can see that in the pic below. Also notice the gears are retained with E-clips.

Here is a quick shot of the new link mounts that are machined into the axle case.

Stay tuned for more info and a build using these axles to test the strength of some of the new components. Things are not looking great for this kit but I will push the limits and see where it fails.