Hi Dave
If you have the top grease drilled kingpins then no need to do anything at all to the kingpins. The 2 holes in the upper annular groove distribute (bleed) the grease into the right place. However, when I first fitted a Mulfab steering bearing back in 2002 I asked Peter about lube for it, his initial response was that when packed they should be OK for the life of the bearing but he said straight away that he could see the logic behind the question......that discussion lead to a friendship that has lasted until today ;-). In fact I am just back from spending time at the workshop this morning....;-).
What needs doing, and good to note MMC now also do, is to provide grease 'bleed' holes in the stub axle for the steering bearings. Very simple and I modify everyone I do when changing kingpins for owners who do not have the later stub axles. For reference I use a 1mm drill bit (simply because that's the size of the hole the factory now drill).
1. Mount the stub axle in a vice or similar with the bush tube vertical (not a critical position).
2. Place the lower outer race of the Mulfab bearing on the stub axle. Then mount the ball race.
3. Observe the centre of the ball race track and mark the stub axle bush tube (I use masking tape and a pencil or use marking out fluid and a marking divider if you want to be totally correct) in the centre of the ball race. Make 3 equidistance marks.
4. Drill holes through to the inter bush grease reservoir.
5. I do this before pushing bushes out as that cleans the drilled holes up or clean any swarf from the holes.
It's worth a note to say MMC started with one drilled hole when it started fitting its own version of the steering bearing, then moved to 2 and finally 3 holes.
A very simple thing to do and effective in keeping the bearings with a fresh supply of grease. To test the above I have assembled a dry steering bearing, greased the assembly and then stripped and checked and can confirm grease is getting into the bearing race.
This morning I was modifying a pin punch using Peters lathe and belt sander and we were talking about kingpins and stubs as I have made a long 3mm pin punch to get those bu*****er split pins out on wire wheel cars when someone has hammered in an oversized split pin !@!!!
All the fun of the fair ;-)
