King Pins

[Healey Nut]

Anyone have any good tips on replacing king pin bushings . I have got the old ones out and the swivel assembly is all clean and ready for new bushings . I see the new bushings are split . How essential is that very expensive stepped reamer ?

 

[Bob_Spidell]

... How essential is that very expensive stepped reamer ?

Very. The bushings have to be pressed-in correctly, with the grease holes aligned, then reamed to the proper ID. Without reaming, you might not be able to get the king pin installed--I've never tried, though--and even if you could they might bind. I'd send them to BCS (or Bob Yule in CA) or another resto shop that has the necessary tools and experience.

 

[Randy Forbes]

You're supposed to replace one (1) bushing at a time; you use an old bush as a guide while you ream the first (per stub-axle) new bush. Next step is to remove/replace the 2nd bush, this time using the already reamed new bush as the guide.

It takes more than having the individual bushes reamed to the correct size, they also must be in perfect alignment.

I've done several sets for various members here, but if I understand your post correctly, you've already removed both (2) bushes from each stub-axle; not sure what the best approach would be next. In your case, the one (1) piece reamer may be your only option.

Here's a link to the last set I did, might give you a better understanding of what I'm talking about: https://spcarsplus.com/gallery3/index.php/BN6-stub-axles

For future reference to anybody planning to job out the king-pin bush installation, let the machinist remove the bushes to avoid throwing a monkey-wrench in the gears...

 

[Randy Forbes]

Here's an example of how much material had to be removed from this particular bush:

 

[stuntflyr]

Ah, another job for the machinist!
Chris...