I see that there are two different king pin replacement kits, one with plastic and one with metal bushings.
Is one preferred over the other and do the metal bushing need to be reamed/sized after installation?
I would guess that the plastic is to size.
MOOG replacement shows to use the metal ones on the 73 F250 with a 460 and 6500 lb rating.

The last ones I did were on a 59 F100 with a straight axel, and they had to be reamed/sized to fit the pins.

 

The metal bushed kits do need to be reamed to size.

The plastic do not, however, they are known to go to crap relatively quickly (think 20,000 miles or far less)

I assume you are doing this yourself at home? When I did mine I removed the entire beam assemblies and took them into a machine shop. They were able to press the old ones out, install the new bushings and size them, quickly and fairly cheap.

Of course that was after a couple days of beating the bejesus out of them with a BFH, torch a butt-ton of swearing.

I have had better luck with Class 8 trucks!

Josh

 

did the shop ream or hone them to size?
do you know the pin diameter and the clearance specification?
yes, I am doing it at home, but have a press and machine tools in my shop to size them

 

exact size is based on the kingpins you are using them with. Take out the old bushings and ream new based on dia. of kingpins.

 

Yeah, the machine shop should (heavy emphasis on "should") know what to do.

Other than that, McMaster-Carr would have reamers, but they aren't cheap.

Josh

 

just curious of the specified fit, .001-.003 clearance would be my guess
will be using the adjustable blade reamer, btw enco has them for $25, should be serviceable for one job even tho not the highest quality, mcmaster is over $100.
according to what I have found out the 73 with 460 uses the same as the 350, larger pins at about 1.052
with shops, unless it is an everyday thing, they usually ream a little sloppy or have seen them hone............not going there