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Do you have to ream swivel axle if not worn?

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Thor

Thor

Senior Member
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Here's my question. Would I need to ream out the swivel axle for a new kingpin if there was no wobble in the old assembly?

The reason I ask is that I found one of the "Wishbone arms" badly worn and cracked. I removed the entire assembly and ended up having to remove the swivel axle assembly by cutting the fulcrum pin. In the end I found I couldn't remove the pin holding the cut off part of the fulcrum pin that remained in the kingpin. I tried to drill out the pin and messed up. So now I need to replace that part as well. Since the entire swivel axle assembly seemed to be in good condition before I messed up I need to decide can I just swap a new part without reaming cheap or should I just bit the bullet and get a whole rebuilt swivel arm?
 
If you are really sure that there was no wear, it's OK to reuse these.
But keep in mind that the repair is pretty cheap and it is easy to do when things are apart.
I can get a new set of bushings and push them in myself pretty easily. My local foreign-car repair shop has the correct reamer and he will re-size the bushings for a moderate fee.
 
Thor - there you go..that solves the problem we were talking about!
 
I ended up reusing my old bushings as well. The new kingpins fit in the bushing fairly snug. Where I ran into a snag was trying shim them. .025 was too tight and .030 is too loose. I'm going to try and stamp out a couple of .007 shims out of some stock that I have at work.
JC
 
Think about that shim stuff. You are only talking about .005 or less slop. That is no problem. Put the .030 in and drive it. It won't affect anything. Pull out your feeler gauge and check the thickness of .005. Relax it is ok, heck the dang thing will probably heat up while driving and expand that much anyway.
 
lol...I figured you would say that jolly. I'm way to anal about things sometimes... I'll follow you advice as usual.
JC
 
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