Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Kingpins - DaveW's How To...........

Thats a cracking write up Dave, and brilliant pics. I have been reading up on mog front end suspension and your pics have really helped me to visualise and understand whats going on.

I have my car booked in for kingpins in a week or so as I haven't got the mechanical confidence to tackle this yet - maybe next time they need doing!

Another excellent 'How-to' Dave.

Cheers,

Hello Peter,
Yes it can be done with care like that, it's how I did it. My trolley jack lifting face is cupped and so holds things in place. The spring will come out like that (with a bit of a twang) but I couldn't get it back in so had to compress it. I found it's easier to use three or four slim webbing straps (Halfords type luggage ones. Let the spring extend, feed these in, compress the spring with the jack, tighten the straps, let the jack down again and away you go. This way you are using the weight of the car to compress the spring. I also used the jack to re-assemble. I'd say either way is good and Daves is a bit safer. Using my method I had both sides done in a day but then I'm too impatient for painting!
Regards

Really helpful article Dave. MANY thanks

Brian

Thanks for info, Simon!

Compressors are safer, no doubts. Anyway I don't like them always, as it is often hardly possible to avoid injuries of the spring coating.

Am I right supposing, that getting the stuff back in with the jack, the weight of the car is too less to compress the spring fully?

How about to "tie" the lower cross-tube of the suspension to the garage bottom (e.g. a screw with a ring anchored to the garage bottom)? Then it should not be a problem to compress the spring the last few milimeters to get the kingpin assembly in?

Regards


Peter

Gerwyn - yes the discs are EBC but fitted (well, paid for) by owner number 2. Apparently they can judder, as you've mentioned in a previous post, and if I didn't have them, I doubt I'd risk them. Peter Mulberry has more appealing options. Mine have a very slight judder, and I'm hoping that the lack of steering dampers won't make this worse. I'm also worried that I might get wheel wobble if the steering is lightened up. But looking on the bright side, I could change the discs in little over half an hour a side. The spring clips in the calipers are MGB by the way, and the split pins look as if they might be - only just long enough.

Peter - as I said earlier, with the benefit of this experience, the main spring only needs a slight compression, and if it's shortened or tired it will go back in without compressing. So the only issue is the rebound spring. The jack method is quicker, no doubt about that, but a spring in the face I could do without, so I used the slow method. You could opt to position the kingpin low. You could even fit the lower nyloc 'loose' over the bottom plate, then jack up. This will hold the rebound spring, and I believe that's why GoMog recommends locating the top of the kingpin with a screwdriver to centralise the kingpin before fitting the top bolt. In the end, there's no right way of doing this. There's a quicker way, and a safer way, and a choice!!!

I'm making progress with my latest rebound spring protector, so with luck I'll have something to show by the end of the week.

Hi All,
Congratulations Dave, nice job and great report.
How long did it take globally ?
BR.
Daniel.

The weight of the car is not enough to get the rebound spring all the way home but sufficient to get the bolts back in and drag it up the rest of the way. I wouldn't like to secure the car to the floor and then use the jack, if the car lifts something's wrong, if it's strapped down you wouldn't know.
My car's an '86 but there's no way I could get the main spring back in by hand. The first time I did the job I used an adaptation of my bush puller to compress the spring then strapped it to put it back on. Strapping it as it comes off is easier. Either way, when the springs compressed the palms start to sweat a bit!
Regards

One quick addition to the notes regarding the damper lower stub - the threads are UNF - I called them AF in a moment of stupidity.

Daniel - if you have not done this before, allow two days (12 hours) for the first side, and a day and a half for the second side - especially if you want to paint everything up. With practice it could be done in one day each side, but it's physically demanding at times, so better spread out over a longer period. After 6 hours I lose concentration, so usually pack in then. In my youth I could keep going for 12 hours....

One more thing - it's imperat - imperr - very important you get the tracking re-set after this job, 1mm slack in the bushes causes a big change in the tracking.
Regards