Ihatefiberglass

I have been to 5 machine shops in town who said they weren't equipped to change out the kingpins in my 1956 88. I finally found a 6th who said they would remove the kingpins but would not reinstall the new ones, which I thought was ridiculous.

Does anyone know of a machine shop who will be willing to replace these king pins?

Junkman

Where are you located? Replacing king pins isn't rocket science, but having the right tools are the difficult part. You need to find a truck alignment shop, since some of the older big rigs used king pins, or so I was told. I have the tools and the knowledge, but without knowing where you are located, that isn't going to be of much use to you. I know of 2 places that are equipped to do king pins, one in Southbridge MA, and the other in East Windsor CT.

oldcutlass

X2 on finding an alignment shop that does medium to heavy trucks. If you want to tackle this yourself, you need the proper sized ream for the new bushings.

Ihatefiberglass

I definitely stopped by several shops that do kingpins on trucks but they also said they weren't equipped for such a small kingpin. I have no problem shipping you the Kingpins Junkman, please check PMs for contact info.

Junkman

I replied to your PM, and I should have read this thread again. I will give you a call tomorrow, and we can discuss it. In the meantime, here is a video that explains the process. What they don't show, is how to ream the bushings. Now, I don't know if the bushings that you got with your kit, need to be reamed. If the bushings that you purchased are pre sized to the pin, then all you need to have done, is to press the bushings into the spindles.


This video seems to explain what you are up against.


Tomorrow, I will dig out my kingpin reamers, and you can see the difference between the video above, and how they are properly done. You will need to watch each subsequent video to understand the entire process.


Junkman

rustyroger

I would think you almost certainly need to ream the bushes, they will distort slightly when they are pressed in.
I have replaced dozens of them in milk floats back in the day, but the shop was equipped with the tools for the job. Finding the correct size reamer will be the hard part, there is nothing difficult about the job if you have a stout press, some muscle, and a reamer.

Roger.