I have an appointment next week at the Mr.GoodWrench to inspect my Bonne due to the evidence of axle grease sprayed around the engine bay.

Bill discovered it after the Woodburn Bashing. We put it up on his ramps and could not see any physical damage except for the clean grease sprayed out all around the passenger axle inner boot. Cleaned it up but after the 500 mi trip home I see it'* back again.
The service manager looked at it this morning and has ordered in a new boot. He thinks that there is a pin hole in the boot.

What do you think may have caused this. :?:

.......I never drive it hard.......

I'm surprised they are actually fixing it..... Anyways, stock axles can't take the pressure and I don't know what it is but when you do enough burnouts the boot will rip causing the grease leak. I've seen it many many times with GTP'*. The axle won't actually break, it will just leak grease. I think maybe the boot slips and the end where it clamps on loosens up and thats where it comes from, but I'm not sure.

Shawn

The boot isn't ripped. I am almost positive it is leaking out from the clamped end closest to the engine.
So what causes it to loosen? Does the excessive torque cause any permanent damage to the shaft or joint?
I know they are simply planning to replace the boot only.

....they don't know I'm racing it ......I hope they don't read this. .....so it should be covered under warranty. :P

I thought those axles were very heavy duty. What are the GP guys running instead?

A rearwheel drive car is looking better all the time.....

Stock axles suck, they break all the time... The GTP guys either just replace the stock axles with stock ones, or there is a company called "South Flordia Pulley Headquarters" or something like that that has their own "unbreakable" halfshafts for the GTP'*. This is what my dad runs on his GTP and has had no problems. The first time he broke a stock axle he just decided that was what was going in because he didn't want to mess with it. However, for the SSEi'* these probably won't work because I think they are a different length. My guess is the torque is what causes it to slip though, it just pulls it enough one way that it loosens up or something, but I'm not sure.

Here is a link to the GTP axles just in case you were wondering about them:
http://www.zzperformance.com/product...ce65dd12326188

Shawn

Well at least on a positive note, I know that the limited slip is working very well in transmitting torque to that right wheel.

On one of PDad'* burnouts, I didn't see any smoke coming from his right wheel. :?

What is the weak link in the axle? ...besides a boot clamp that loosens due to axle twist.

i asked intense, and they said they use only stock GM axles, no heavy duty ones, when they break (which i understand is rare) they just put in a new GM one

I'm not trying to say anything against Intense, but people have axles break all the time on GTP'*, I don't understand why they are saying otherwise!?!? Search on ClubGP, among the cars making enough power its VERY common for GTP'* to break axles. Usually is the 12 second cars or quicker that do it (due to the power they make) so there is a limited amount of people that make enough power to break them. So as a whole, counting the 20k+ members on club gp its not very common, but when you consider just the 12 second and quicker guys, LOTS of them have broken axles. There is nothing wrong with the stock axles, and for most daily driving they are plenty strong enough, the problem is burnouts are hard on them and if you do enough racing they will break. For the not-so-serious racers stock axles are plenty strong enough for them, but for people that are more serious about racing their cars at the strip stock axles might not be the right choice. And IMO if your axle breaks once then doesn't it prove that you are harder on it and might need something stronger, and the perfect time to upgrade to something better is when you have a failure, so why not upgrade to stronger axles? The little extra cost seems like its worth the peace of mind of not worrying about your axles to me.

Shawn