Well, the fun continues! Today, all day I have been disesembling my front axel. Everything went well until the very last thing to do. I was removing the right hand wheel spindle. I got the nut off the bottom easy enough, then tried to turn the bolt to remove it and pull the spindle. It wouldn't budge. That was at noon today. I have been banging on it, heating it, soaking it in oil, and every other trick I can think of. Two destroyed wrenches later, it hasn't yet moved. It is frozen inside the spindle. Both ends of the bolt pivit inside the axel ends, but won't even budge inside the spindle. Now what?

Soak it in so PB blaster for a day or so. If that doesn't work ,get out the heat wrench.

WOW! That was the kingpin from Hell! I soaked it in a 1 gallon zip lock baggie over night in deasel fuel just because I had it here. Then this morning I heated it and tapped on it, and whah-lah! She broke loose. I destroyed both an 11/16 box end wrench, and a 11/16 socket to get that baby out of there...but victory is mine! lol

Tim,

Just for reference, the kingpin bolt is supposed to rotate in the bronze bushings in the spindle. The threads are supposed to lock it to the axle so it won't rotate.

When you replace the old spindle bushings, be sure to only remove one bushing at a time and use the long reamer that uses one bushing to guide the reamer while reaming the other. That will assure the newly installed bushings are aligned correctly.

PS: I used a 1/4" pipe tap screwed up into the bushing and then used a hammer and my long socket extension inside the spindle to knock them out. The socket gives the extension something to push on.

Tom
Detroit

Tom,
What you are describing is just what I thought. NOT what it was doing though. It was frozen to the spindle and rotating back and forth in the axel. Luckily, there was enough slop on the bushings, to allow it to rotate in the threads enough to go slightly up and down the threads with each turn so it didn't mess up the threads in the axe. I have both new king pins and bushing on order. A friend has a reamer he is going to lend me to install them. Thanks for the help!

Tim

How did the steel kingpin freeze to the bronze bushings in the spindle? Just curious.

David,

If Tim's kingpin is like one of mine, likely the bushings were not reamed in line like they are supposed to be and really bound up. I had to sort of unscrew the kingpin from the bushings before replacing them. Turned out the whole front axle was so loose that the stiff kingpin was the only reason I did not have a bad shimmy.

Tom

David,
Like Tom said, it was very, very tight in the bushing. Good question how iron froze to brass, but believe me, it was like it was welded.

Tim