• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Kingpin Reamer

Share this page

L

LanceLyon

Jedi Hopeful
Offline
Does anyone have a source for a reamer for the kingpin bushings? I am rebuilding my front suspensiion with A Moss kit, and while the lower bushings seem to be fine, the upper bushings will not allow the shaft to slide in.

My service manual shows two reamers as special tools, but Moss does not handle them and I don't know where to start looking!

Any ideas out there? Thanks!
 
Re: Kingpin Reamer *DELETED*

Post deleted by bighly
 
LL,
This project would be costly for you to buy the reamers & pilots. Not a good first time project if you are not familiar with machine work. I suggest that you just take the parts to a couple of good general machine shops & leave them with whichever one you are most comfortable. A good machinist may even already have rigged up reamers, pilots, & or collets. The key words are "line reaming two different diameters".

Randy or Greg may well have already done it.
D
 
Locate a good machine shop that has a Sunnen hone. A good machinist using a Sunnen hone can line bore to the exact fit of each bushing to .0005 inch loose. I paid $40.00 to have my king pin bushings sized and fit.
 
I took my assemblies to Peter at Marina Motors (in Venice, CA) to ream (he has the correct reamer). He looked at my bushings and said they were fine. So I’m still using the originals. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
LL,
This project would be costly for you to buy the reamers & pilots. Not a good first time project if you are not familiar with machine work. I suggest that you just take the parts to a couple of good general machine shops & leave them with whichever one you are most comfortable. A good machinist may even already have rigged up reamers, pilots, & or collets. The key words are "line reaming two different diameters".

Randy or Greg may well have already done it.
D

[/ QUOTE ]
I use two (2) appropriately sized reamers and a pilot in the end opposite that I'm reaming.

I used to use the one piece reamer for MGB kingpins about thirty (30) years ago when I worked at Austin-Healey West (in San Francisco), but I've never even seen the one piece Healey one. I can't imagine what it would cost to have one made; though I did have a reamer "customized" to match the taper on the steering rod ends.

Like Dave says, not worth the expense for a single set of kingpins; take them to a reputable machinist /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Yes it is costly ,but if you have the one piece reamer you do not need pilots.I use pilots with mine because I use two separate reamers.Either way about 10 years ago it would run you $300.00 not cheap for a one shot deal.---Keoke
 
So how does this one piece reamer work? If non-adjustable, you are stuck with one-size-fits-all. Are all pins well enough controlled dimensionally to permit this?
D
 
No Dave, A good one piece reamer should be and was originally adjustable to handle the variations in pin size. My reamers are adjustable too. However, Some repair shops have a fixed one and charge extra to to mill the pins.---Keoke
 
[ QUOTE ]
So how does this one piece reamer work? If non-adjustable, you are stuck with one-size-fits-all. Are all pins well enough controlled dimensionally to permit this?
D

[/ QUOTE ]
Not the best picture, but it's item #80 in the following link. https://www.mossmotors.com/Shop/ViewProducts.aspx?PlateIndexID=29020

Essentially, the pilot(s) and reamer(s) are all cut onto one blank. Not certain I remember the procedure, but it seems as though you had to drive out the small bush first, replace it and ream to size with the pilot in the large (as yet unchanged) bush. Once the small bush was reamed, you could r&r the large bush and ream it to size. It all had to do with how far the reamer was inserted into the kingpin. Bad day if you did them in the wrong order, or if you put in both new bushes before reading the instructions...
 
Hi Randy,
Thanks for the info. I notice that the reamer for MGB is #386-370 for about $303. The listing for the Healey reamer shows #386-375 & not available. Not that I need it anyway, just curious.
D
 
I'm looking for some help on this one...

Small town here in Wilson, NC. I have been to 1 speed shop and 2 large machine shops. Left the king pins at one... 2 months later - back they come with upper bushing on one perfect - the lower bushing so close that with a brake hone I got a great fit in about 30 minutes of work. But the m/c shop got scared before they finished the job and never touched the other side

I've got one more place in town to check... but I was hoping someone could give me a name and phone number of someone they used for this task. I have to get it back on the suspension with the engine in before i can start the panel alignment. This - what I thought would be an easy job for a m/c shop has turned out to be one delay after another.

Thanks in advance for the help
 
I don't see what the problem is, I do them myself using available reamers and home-made pilots.

hnr_023.jpg


hnr_028.jpg


hnr_029.jpg


hnr_031.jpg
 
I say send them to Randy, that's where I'm going to send mine!
 
Dave Richards said:
I say send them to Randy, that's where I'm going to send mine!
Click to expand...
WooHoo! Let me know when you need a <span style="font-style: italic">ship to </span>address :wink:
 
Back
Top