Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing King Pins & bush renewal

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 :

Not sure I would trust those luggage straps

Interesting photos, but I'm with John on the straps. Whilst I agree they have capacity and damage to them will reduce this very quickly.

Responding to doubts as to safety of straps round the springs I did some sums and reckoned that they are no more than 20% within reach of their breaking strain. The strain is taken up with the ratchet and the springs compress without any sign of stretching the straps. The springs are not allowed to become decompressed so can go back into place later without any need for juggling with levers or risk of injury. Later on I hope to put up additional photos of re-assembly showing this to be advantageous.

Added images show worn Kingpins and Bushes and the rebound springs wrapped in shamoise strips.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gntapper/sets/72157638603527835/

Road test reveals marked improvement in steering as expected.
95% of the king pin bush wear occured at the lower end where the exposed pin was able to pick up grime and water thrown up from the road.
Even hard chromed pins require a protective boot of some sort.
A good hard wearing bushing material is available that would last 100,000 miles. As used in earth moving vehicles subject to extreme wear conditions, a sort of Nylon PTFE mix.
I believe it to be one answer but rejected it on grounds of cost and my limited expertise at fitting. Getting it machined to the required size upping the cost.
But for anyone interested in investigating further their web address link is here:
http://www.vesconite.com

I think Vesconite has already been used for Morgan bushes.

It has.
Vesconite Hi-Lube. Many are still fitting it. Others have gone back to bronze...

Link to test on Hi-Lube:
http://www.morganownersclub.com.au/Docum...and%20Tests.pdf

Graham; any idea why the others have gone back to bronze ?

Because hard chrome and bronze is better.

In a word, no!

The bushes can be used with hard chrome king pins - but I suspect without some form of lower gaiter the bushes may have suffered from crud faster than bronze, but I could be off track there...