You have to take care of your dd if you want it to take care of you. FWIW, my friend in the MB repair biz for ~40 years had never seen an axle snap such as yours. And that was when it was just (1) axle. Something very strange going on w/ that car.

It's on an early 90's International 10 ton truck. It was fully loaded taking off from a stop.

I agree, it is strange that both axles snapped in the same place within days of each other. I now have a ton of time and $ into the car, but I feel it's been worth it as the body, engine and transmission are all good, and I love how it drives and how much it hauls. With the exception of the rear brake calipers, which are NLA for the L and $800 for the R, parts have been inexpensive and it's easy to work on.

My big mistake was going nuts on the 73 and not taking the time to fix the Merc. Now I have to replace the fender since getting it off the flatbed wasn't kind to it.

At least one of the rear axles was replaced BTW. One had triple-square bolts and the other 6-point stars. I added schnorr washers when replacing both.

if I were to get one of these for my grandfather (he wants a sedan), I would just order all the parts that have broken on this and give him a relatively new car given a clean PPI on the engine/transmission.