There's a guy that makes hardened pinions for the LST.
He calls his pinions 8man or something like that.
I haven't bought anything off him in quite a while & can't remember the details. Google?
I have no idea if it's the same as Mikes. Can you get a pic of his & compare the two side by side?
Anyway, here's a couple more pics. The last one happened today driving extremely sedately on a 1/10 off-road track.
I'm changing the TiNi gears for the plastic version as they have more biting surface area & don't concentrate the load on one narrow point, plus, it will hopefully be quieter.