[jbollis]

I don't know why everyone tries to scare people into thinking the aluminum rear ends are weak and cannot handle any kind of work load. I have never heard of anyone pulling the bolts out of the rear. I am not saying it has not been done, but I would bet if it has they were doing something they should not have been doing or the bolts were not tight.

I did some looking and figuring and this is what I found.

Fastener = 3/8-16 x.750. Using about .500

A 3/8-16 thread internal thread has around a .03392 shear area at .500 of use. I don't know the specs for the housing, so I used the lowest aluminum tensile strength of 26000 psi for this figure.

.03392 x 26000 = 881.92 psi per bolt, x 5 bolts = 4409.60 psi on only the bolts themselves would be needed to pull (strip) the threads out of the aluminum housing.

I understand that these numbers are not exact as I don't know the exact specs on the housing. But you can see that someone would have a very difficult time pulling the 5 bolts out under normal use. A person would have to be pulling more than 2 tons, that is more than you can legally haul in the bed of most pickups.

I can however see problems occurring if the bolts are not tight. But that is a another story.