King Pin / Bush renewal.
With plenty of entries already on the subject my post here is limited to slight variations on the DIY aspects.
Dismantling is pretty straightforward but the method of constraining the main springs done as follows. Using two luggage straps with the lever tensioners attached on one end of 1” wide webbing (obtainable from Halfords, threaded over an upper and a lower coil of the spring. This was done with the webbing looped through twice and ending up on the opposite side tensioner so that the webs do a slight spiral pattern and require tightening together. With the webbing capable of a load tension of at least 400kg there is ample safe loading because the spring compression is shared between eight as seen in the image.
The recoil lower spring was then released by using a couple of 4” bolts inserted in place of the short bolts either side of the ½” UNF central self-locking nut at the base of the king pin.
With the spring pressures released / contained I felt more relaxed to drop the pins and stub axle.
Measuring the wear I found that the nearside only slightly worn but the offside badly worn and probably an M.O.T. failure with 45 thou. at the bush and 10 thou. at the pin such that the lower bush has a clearly visible oval internal shape as seen in the photo.
[img:center]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gntapper/sets/72157638603527835/[/img]
Next comes removal of bushes, reaming, reassembly and establishing correct toe-in. More to follow :
