I hear that I will need a reamer to put the king pins in my 52—3100. Is this to ream the arm before I put the new bushings in or the bushings after I pound them in? Where can such an item be found and how big a drill will it take to turn it? Can the old bushings be driven out or will I need to remove the arm and press "out with the old and in with the new?" Do I have to go oversized? I guess that’s all the questions I can think of on my king pins. TIA for the help. Larry
I replaced my king pins about 6 months or so ago. I got lots of input into the subject then. Look in the archives (or maybe not archived yet) and sort the top heading by subject. Look then alphabetically under king pins(doubleclick on the subject line above the headings to sort by alphabet). Kent
[updated:LAST EDITED ON Sep-09-05 AT 02:50 PM (CST)]The answer is, you probably do not need to ream nor do you need oversize king pins. Just get the regular size ones, the old ones should come out easily after getting the locking pin out, which will be tight and probably destroyed on removal. But they give you new ones. The new bushings and kingpins will slide right in, and unless there is drastic looseness, you are good to go.
The experience I had was that mine had to be pounded out and it took 2 days of pounding, then soaking in WD40/penetrating oil/light oil, alternatively. It was an experience I do not want to repeat. But the axel and spindle was not worn significantly, so there was no need to do anything but put in the new pins. KentC
Thanks everyone. I did go back through the archives and copied the best of them also. I wish I could just pump some JB weld in through the grease zirks,
In my limited experiance the king pins seem to come out easier if you invert the axle and push them _up_ and out , use an arbor press or make a simple jig to use a hydraulic bottle jack as the pounding usually mushrooms the pins making them harder to remove . Test fit everything , it is rare to need to ream them , if you need to , operate the ream by hand with plenty of thin machine oil and use one old bushing as a guide to ensure the ream is correctly aligned . Looks carefully at the order of the shims as it's critical . -Nate
The hardest part is removing the tapered pin that runs perpendicular to the king pin. I recently did this job for the second time (different trucks) but instead of fighting it I removed the axle and sent it out to be chem dipped. The acid soaked in and loosened up the rust around the tapered pins so that I only had to remove the nuts and lightly tap on the threaded end once and the pins dropped out of the axle. Once you have done the beat, heat, cut and drill routine you will appreciate this approach. The king pins should not require much force at all to remove or at least that's been my experience. In case it's not practical to send the axle out, you can buy a good rust remover from http://www.ultraoneusa.com/ This is a great product. No smell and is non toxic. You could do just the ends in a small bucket. I sent mine out because I wanted the whole thing clean and rust free.
