I wound up taking it to a shop as I couldn't find a piloted adjustable reamer in the size range I needed. It cost $90 total (I pressed my bushings in myself, making sure the grease holes matched up). Thanks for the advice.

 

I jsut installed a pair of these over the weekend. WOW what a difference they made on my 52.

Deluxe 1942-48 Ford King Pin Set - Speedway Motors, America's Oldest Speed Shop

not too pricey at 159 bucks cause when you consider the cost of machine work etc for stock bushings.

 

Am about to replace the king pins on the spindles & axle on the stock truck front end . I assume one needs to heat the spindle bolt lock bolt to get it out ? The R side sems to move freely while the L. side seems tight . Great informative thread . Thanks guys !!

 

I did mine in May. I didn't have to heat the bolt that holds the king pin in but I did have to heat the axle some to get the left side pin out. I used an air chisel with a pointed bit to force it down. The passenger side fell right out. I also had to ream the axle holes a little with a piece of sandpaper. I made a cheapie mandrill by slitting a 3/8" rod I had laying around and inserting the sandpaper into the slip and then chucking the other end of the rod into my drill. I reamed a little, checked the fit of the pin, reamed a little more and checked for fit again. I did this until the pin just fit through. When my son took it to the front end shop the guy told him the fit was a little loose which I can't believe because I kept test fitting until they went in. Before I reamed the axle out I could not get the pin to slide in at all. I could feel the insides were rough from rust.

When you install the pins make sure the bolts are driven in enough to make the non threaded end flush with the axle casing. I only tightened the bolts until they felt like the nut was on all the way. The non threaded end was still sticking out about 1/4". My son said the front end guy took a BFH and whacked on them until they were flush and then tightened the nuts down all the way.

 

Definitely advantages to heat the locking bolt .Applied a little heat to both , supported axle and whacked with a BFH and they both came out . Both locking bolts are toast . This was all done on a spare axle . Am just going to use the cleaned up spindles and replace on the stock truck w/ new king pins .
The R side king pin came out w/ just a few seconds of air hammer , ( Thanks Bob ) .Am soaking L side over nite . Will try the air hammer sun. If it does not move will taike it to the race shop Mon. and press it out . Then clean up the spindles primer & paint , check fit , May have the new king pins professionally installed by a shop that works on old stuff and can align a straight front axle truck .
Will keep you posted .Thanks to all again , Denny

 

The king pin set I got from Classic Haulers had all the bushings, pins and bolts.

 

Wrong! 48-52 use the same size pins and bushings as the '39-'48 Cars; '53 - '56 use a slightly larger pin. (so you can use a reamer for the Cars, but note the Car pins have the locking pin notch in a slightly different location so don't buy the Car rebuild kit)
48-52: .81" pin OD
53-56: .85" pin OD

53-56 bushings are also a little longer (1-5/16" vs 1.30")

Resurrecting this thread to correct the error in my previous posting, also because I found a bunch of play in my left kingpin less than 3,000 miles after a complete refurbishment. It appears to be the cause of a shimmy/wobble at 55 and above.

Took it apart and sadly, at least half the play is in the kingpin-to-axle fit. But most of it disappears if I really crank on the retaining pin. I doubt that's enough to "cure" the problem, so I'm looking into O/S pins... How to ream the axle without pulling it?? Sounds like a $$$ infusion coming...

 

Ross,

Thats a major bummer. I'd say go ahead and pull the axle, its not that tough and would probably be easier in the long run.

Bobby

 

Yeah, I'm almost halfway there, Bobby. Although I did find an alternative on the HAMB... Also found some threads there to the effect the locking pins in some kits are inferior/made wrong, don't lock the pin tightly.

 

There was an article probably 5 yrs or so ago in one of the mags about sleeving the axle to correct the out sized bore - I'll see if I can find it or maybe one of our more astute members has it indexed on their puter

 

I used to watch my father shrink the axle hole with heat to cure this problem. He would heat the axle around the hole for the king pin with his cutting torch to cherry red, and walk away to let it cool. This would shrink the hole so the new king pin was a tight fit.

 

As BobJ pointed out above, MOOG offers a pin set .010" oversize for $4 more than the cost of standard pin sets. I think I found a trustworthy outfit to ream the axle and bushings at a reasonable cost, reasonable enough I don't want to try anything myself.