Hello friends.
Well, I woke up nice and early to go to my friends tire shop on his day off to do a minor install of new leafspring pins and bushings. I was getting some HEAVY wandering, and had lots of play in my wheel, so I thought this might help right? Well, we jack up the truck to find an inch of play up and down, side to side on my axle ends, where my kingpins meet on either side. Oh MY! So I make the drive (in my ladys car) about an hour away, to get a Kingpin kit. I buy one, and drove it back to the shop.
We had a devil of a time removing the old bushings, but finally did. We drove in the new ones, but the pins wouldnt go in for the life of me. (its now starting to get a little late, and the manager of the shop wants to go home) We spend another 2 hours trying to get the pins in the spindles, but the bottom one on the passenger side keeps pushing out. By the time we quit, we had completely destroyed the new bushings. I had to put the whole thing back together with the old parts (damaged) and push it into a bay.
I get there this morning, and the owner of the shop starts chewing me out for leaving my truck in HIS shop. I told him I would move it as soon as I could get everything back together, so I push it into the lot, and start wrenching the front axle off again.
Here I am, the front axle off of my truck, on jacks in the parking lot of a busy business. Sweaty, greasy, and the owner throwing looks at me that could kill. ( as my buddys job is in jeopardy) He doesnt care though
I make the 2 hour drive round trip to pick up another king pin kit.
I come back, and decide to take everything to the local machine shop to have it done right. The guy tells me it will be 3 days until I can pick up the finished product, with no clue on how much its gonna cost me. I have to go up to the owner of the shop (this guy isnt cool at all) and tell him I need to leave my truck in his lot for the next 3 days. So there my baby is in the parking lot of a tire store, in a busy part of town for the next 3 days, and Im worried about her. I keep wondering if someone is going to vandalize my truck, push it off the jacks, break in or something.
Is there a moral to this story?
A one day job is rarely a one day job. In this case, a 2 hour job turned into the 5 day job ...or worse!

Ill keep you guys posted.

 

Oh well, this sounds like a big time nightmare to me. I always had the luck to have my projects in my own shop where I could leave it for years without the need to move it an inch. I could not work if someone would stand behind me checking his watch every five minutes. .... OK, wifes do that........ but who cares .........

By the way I also changed king pins and bushings a long time ago and I cannot recall any problems at all. Guess I was lucky.

... and keep us posted on this drama.

 

I made a point to find a 'grey haired' front end man that had seen more kingpins than I had ever spoken in conversation. Got him the right parts (his biggest bottleneck), and it was done in a day w/o much pain other than the mild one in my wallet. Actually it was pretty reasonable. He also gave a critique on what else in the steering was beat, with the disclaimer, 'these things were never too good to begin with'.
Right- as I said b4, "like herdin a cow down the highway".

But now she's merely nostalgically meandering, not darting like a fat Jack Russel.

 

i just had new king pins put on my 51 pickup. i took the axle off and went to a large spring shop. they pressed them in in less the 3 hours. the pins are mae not to fit, you have t hone the bushings. thay way you get no slop in the pins.

 

if i recall right dad called and it was about 35 buck.
i remember the number but im not sure why it is stuck in my head about king pins.
i dont know.
but i hope you have better luck and hope it dont cost a fortune.
keep up posted.

swanny

 

ddurant said it right. You need to have the new bushings pressed in and then line reamed to the correct diameter of the new pins. I had it done to my 50 F1 and it cost about $45 for the pair. They even cleaned em up real nice!

 

The drama continues.......
So I get the call from the machinist this morning. He tells me that my axle is so wallowed out, that I will still have so much slop in the axle, that not much will change. He tells me that my only other option, if I want it done right, is to get a new axle.

I have to get this thing done, so I go into the little ladys ring fund (she ok'ed it) and grab some $$. I drove from San Diego to Riverside today to pick up the new axle from Bobs f-100. (4 hours and some change round trip) I get the axle to the machinist after business hours, and it looks like the flat plates on the axle where the springs should sit, you know- the four holes? is about a half inch on either side wider than the other axle I had on it. This is getting expensive. Why would the width of the spring mount plates be wider? Did they give me the wrong axle?

 

sounds like a couple bad days for you.
ive been there.
it really sucks.
hold in there and you will get over this one.
hopefully you wont have to change anthing else for awhile.

swanny

 

Since the king pins are held rigidly in place in the axle by tapered crosspins, it seems pretty unlikely they are gonna move around much even with "wallowed out" holes in the axle. I know that my new king pins were just a little loose in the old axle holes. After I tightened those taper pins up though, my new king pins were in the axle holes rock solid. You can try this easily by just putting the new king pins in the old axle without the spindles in place. Tighten up the tapered crosspins and see how solid the new king pins are.

If necessary, it seems like maybe your machinist could just ream the old axle holes out a little and let the tapered crosspins hold the new king pins against the opposite sides of the reamed holes???

 

The spindle bushings need to be line reamed for the longest service life. There is a style of bushing does not need to be reamed it has rows of dimples on the inside. If the king pin hole has wallowed out it will let the spindle move putting uneven pressure on the thrust bearing. If the holes are wallowed out the bearing and shim surfaces will be out of shape. All this causes things to wear out much faster. A good machinst can ream the king pin holes and press in steel bushings and correct the bearing surfaces if everything is not too out of shape.

 

Well, I finally got the spindles back from the machine shop.
$75! The axle that they gave me wasnt the right one, so I just put everything back on my old axle, and drove her home. Im going to make the drive back up north, return my axle that I bought, and put the 400 smackers twards what I really want- I F S !

At least she is safe in the garage now, but wow what a hassle. I think I must have aged 2 yrs over the last 3 days. Live and learn I guess. Thanks for the help once again guys.

 

glad she is home.
dont want anything else wrong.
glad to hear you arent as stressed.
hopefully you can kick back and gain your 2 years back in 30 minutes.
hehe.
i would.

swanny

 

Thanks Swanny,
That task is already done. I feel great, and bought a little toyota tercel today for $200. She has 105,000 miles, and runs great. This is just what I need to get parts, and have my effie done right! Now she can stay in the garage, and if it takes forever to get my truck done, I wont mind......much.

 

I had a similar problem when I replaced my kingpins in my '59.I trashed the first set(too much beating & banging)couldn't steer it when I was finished.Took it all back apart,went to parts store and purchased an inexpensive brake cylinder hone to hone the brass bushings and it all went back together easy as pie...