If you ever need to rebuild your Pro Series Unit Bearings, we have you covered. Now available is our full line of rebuild parts to make your rebuild as easy as possible, in-stock and ready to ship. Head over to the following links for more details.
We’ve been hard at work outfitting the coolest, most capable, military “UTV” to bless our lands. The BC Customs SXV is built ground up like no other light technical vehicle around. Complete with a Spider 9 IFS and rear Spider 9 Solid Axle, every corner of this machine is designed to take the toughest abuse. As it should, of course! The video above is a few years old now, but these vehicles are running stronger than ever.
We have recently added a new housing calculator to our list of builder tools, making life a little bit easier while you’re working in the shop. The all-new Pro Series Rear Housing Calculator takes much of the guesswork out of building your Spider 9 rear end while using Pro Series Unit Bearings & 45 Spline Axle Shafts. Much like our other Ultimate Unit Bearing calculators, if you know your desired width and pinion offset, this Excel sheet will help calculate the needed housing tube lengths and axle shaft lengths to make it all work.
One NEW feature on this spreadsheet is the numeric entry for Locker Gap and the new selection for Pinion to Locker. Here’s a quick rundown of how these two new fields work.
Locker Gap: In previous spreadsheets, we allowed for two values for this field, .500 and 1.500. Since 45 spline (and 36 spline) axle shafts are designed to nearly contact each other inside the diff, we allow for any entry in this field with recommendations of “common” locker gaps or simply the gap between the passenger and driver shafts.
Pinion to Locker: The distance from pinion center line to “axle shaft centerline” is commonly 2.125″. This is straight out of the Ford OE spec. It’s a value that has been around for ages and is what we usually see. THAT SAID, when you upgrade to 45 spline (or 36 spline) axle shafts, you’re looking for anything BUT ordinary. For design reasons, this distance has changed through the years to minimize the deflection from ring gear to axle shaft. Some locker & spool manufacturers have moved this value, so the axle shaft centerline is more in-line with the ring gear. You will have to check with your locker manufacturer on what value is best to use here, but we now allow any entry in this field to work perfectly for your build.
We’re no stranger to manufacturing a wide variety of off-road axle shafts. From the humble beginnings of the 26 spline Suzuki Samuari to the more modern 45 spline gun-drilled Ultra4 racer, if there’s a need for something stronger, something more capable, we’re in our comfort zone. So it would come as no surprise when rock crawling legend Tracy Jordan calls us up needing a portal axle shaft not yet invented, we’re full steam ahead.
Portal box axle shafts are traditionally designed around CV joints. There’s some good reason for that, many of these OE style applications depend on that constant velocity for rideability and handling. Moving over to the rock crawling world though, needs change. Serviceability, strength, and steering angle play a bigger role for those looking to tackle the planet’s toughest terrains. So, to take Tracy’s family build to the rock crawling level needed, we designed an end-to-end axle shaft solution to work flawlessly with his H1 Portal Boxes. Enter the Spidertrax Ultimate H1 Portal Axle.
We have designed, manufactured, and of course added to our online store, an axle shaft assembly to take your H1 Portal Box to the next level. Our billet one-piece stub shaft fits perfectly into an H1 Portal Box, with two inner axle shaft options to complement those popular housings & diffs — the Toyota 30 spline and the Ford 31 spline. Connecting the stub and inner axles is a specifically designed CTM 45 Series u-joint, sized like a 1350 OE joint, that completes the assembly. All said and done, this is the strongest, most serviceable, H1 portal axle shaft assembly that packs an unmatched 50° of steering.
The Batman, the highly anticipated “likely sequel” to Todd Phillips’ Joker, has been on our radar since 2019. The latest trailer above dropped this week, complete with an expected release date (March of next year), more gritty insight on other highly anticipated characters, and of course more teasing of the latest high-flying Batmobile. We figured why not wait till the movie is released to share a little more of the behind-the-scenes from our perspective, but these trailers have us so excited it’s hard to wait.
Spider 9 IFS drivetrain components are powering this latest trophy truck inspired Batmobile. While not our first time working with exotic movie builds, from the kid-favorite Monster Trucks to the highly reviewed Hobbs and Shaw, there’s something a bit different with this one. Maybe it’s the internet going crazy over these trailers, maybe it’s tied to my own childhood fascination with this particular superhero. Whatever the case, it’s a fun one to talk about and we are honored to be part of the story.
