Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Checking king pins wear

To work on underside at front I jack up under the front bedstead/frame.

I want to check king pin wear; where do I place support so bottom springs are not compressed, ie as in driving mode??

Advise gratefully received

Not sure I understand. When You jack your Morgan up the wheels are off the ground and main spring as uncompressed as they can be unless being held up by the shock from going to the bottom. Certainly not the "driving Mode". About all you can do is to check the wear in the bushes. Maybe somebody else can explain this better than I.

Button
Seattle

I've always placed a trolley jack on the middle of the cross head and used a pair of axle stands to support the bottom tube about 2 to 3 inches each side of the crosshead stamping.

Sometimes I've also placed axle stands under the chassis rails.

As well as checking for wear in the kingpins and bushes, check that the nut at the bottom of the kingpin is as tight as it can be, also the two bolts that secure the bottom plate are also tight - been caught out by that!

Arwyn

Bottom bush near side appears to wear first Ray.

What is "near side"? I understand Driver's side or Passenger side. But not "near side"

Button
Seattle, USA

Near/side, often abbreviated to N/S is side nearest the pavement (sorry sidewalk) so for your your right if sat in the car lookin forward, the opposite is Off Side (O/S) this can be confused with Off Side a rule in Football (not American football), in this instance it means the side furthest away from the pavement (in your case your left). By the way I was assuming you had a left hand drive car for driving on the wrong side of the road (for us).

Maximum wear will take place at the driving position but its not practical to check for this in the home garage. If the bush is worn, play will still be visable when the wheel is unsupported.

When the car is jacked up safely with front wheels hanging freely.Hold the top and bottom of the wheels and shake firmly,if worn you should feel sideways movement. Try to observe bush movement, to eliminate slack wheel bearings.

Thanks one and all

It seems its not possible to support car with wheels lifted but in drive mode ie suspension carrying weight as in drive situation

My concern is bushes and kingpin wear could be taking place in location in drive position but not possible to replicate this position jacked up.

Anyway - thanks again

Ray, I understand your question and although I would have typed up similar to already posted not after I recently did a Morgan's kingpins on a car fitted With a combination of Devol (blue plastic) bushes and Stainless pins as fitted by MMC from around 2001-2006?

The owner was trying for maximum mileage and until I saw the state I could not believe it (he is a member here).

On all other Morgan's most of not all the wear is in the bushes and in particular the lower bush, on this car the Devols were visually like new but the kingpin looked like a step had been Machined in it. The car had recently passed an MOT and had never had an advisory for pin wear and it had most of to services at MMC!

Thee owner and myself were amazed that this could have been missed, not talking a few thou here the wear was measurable in millimetres. That was until I mounted the worn pin in a bench vice and had a measure...on full droop (jacked under the crosshead and wheels hanging down) the stub axles and bushes passed the wear area and moved onto the unworn lower area of the kingpin totally masking the wear as the Rock was now testing a fresh area of pin wth an unworn bush!.

Stainless of the grade used by MMC is soft and the wear impossible to detect with conventional methods used in service and MOT testing. I understand this information has been fed back to MMC but can not see how an 'under load' test can be introduced?

Even (though it's been 35 years) as a former MOT tester I can't see how even the swivel plates might be used to show wear? If you take enough weight on the wheels to replicate loaded position you will never rock them.