The North Korea thing is interesting. I wonder if that’s true. What support do you have for that?
Apparently none now. :doh:
The info I was recalling was from 8 years ago when I did a grad report on embargoes. I didn't think bearings would change that much but .. wow, now only 1%
I also realized I misspoke; Mexico was DPRK's largest western importer of bearings - NOT DPRK being Mexico's largest source.
Current view of DPRK and Mexican trade (still worth looking at):
https://www.trademap.org/Bilateral.aspx?nvpm=1|408||484||8482|||4|1|2|2|1|1|1|1|1
Fun to mess with if you want to look up other countries.
But none of this means that Terflex's axles suck as bad as everyone thinks. I will say that my negatives towards them include their selectable hubs and brake calipers/brackets/rotors being proprietary (shoes are just Dodge 1 tons). This makes getting parts a bit of a PITA. If TF has a falling out with a supplier, your Jeep doesn't roll. You are also held captive to their pricing on those parts.
Their lack of a 5.13 R&P option (damn super 60s) is also a downer. Everything else is pretty common (Spicer bearings throughout).
My guess is the outer assemblies are proprietary because of their attempt to fine tune the steering geometry required engineering everything lateral of the inner C.
At least with Dynatrac, the calipers appear to be OEMs from ZF/TRW so parts are pretty common.
Anyways..Dennis is in South Africa...I hope he brought water.