Front axle snap, design flaw?

[bergerhag]

The old euro zoke fork axle(my '05) has the same outer diameter and dimensions, but it is thicker overall, and has at least 10 mm overlap inside. It also has the hex end (big allen style). inner diameter is ~19 mm

[Bailey28]

Anyone else think that there is a large amount of rust and scale on those parts, for a newish '09? Is it something in the dirt there in Sweden that may be attacking the metal causing the fatigue?

[GMP]

Mine measures 48.12 mm from the outer edge to the ridge at the ID reduction on the inside of the axel. Its also very clean, not a spot of rust. It will not keep me up tonight. FWIW, that bike with the broken axel has a lot of rust on the fork hardware.

[mrkartoom]

I'm somewhat surprised they did not use a single bore diameter all the way through, but I guess weight is the reason. From the cutaway pic if one did want to put some stock in that area it would take some extra machining, but still perfectly doable I'd think.

That area just looks to carry a lot of stress because of the machining and it is thin. I'm guessing if one had their forks tweaked out of alignment and bound up (without even action) for any period of time it would cause additional stress on it.

[bergerhag]

Overtorqueing the front axle nut is a risky one too.

[GMP]

One thing you don't know is the type of steel, treatment, etc. What looks scary may not be so once you know the whole story. I like to know all the facts before passing judgement.

[Rick]

Did an 09 use a wave rotor? The wheel in the photo has the old style rotor? Not to say it could have been changed out....just thinking out loud.

[Clay]

I forwarded this thread to the factory and the response was that they had never had a claim (meaning notice) before of a broken axle. They also said they would look at the '09 axles in stock to see if there was a change or problem.
On the point that these bikes should take a big jump.....please remember these are woods bikes and not meant to be jumped over hugh jumps without modifying the suspension. Moderate jumping....yes. MX triples.....no.
Clay

[GMP]

If I may clarify, what Clay means is that the chassis itself is not a limitation in MX, its the soft suspension that will transmit huge forces to bike and body when bottomed on a big landing.

This is the first known case of a failure like this, out of thousands, since at least '07 as my axel is the same based on my measurement. That statistic seems pretty good to me.

[gasgasman]

Looking at the pics. Does it seem like there is too much space between the fork and the axle/bearing spacer?
Mine has about 5mm.