I had the chance to work on the truck today and boy did I open a can of worms. In addition to the loose rear spring mount, the rear of the drivers side spring pivot bolt had slop. The other side was the same, so they both need replacement. After removal I confirmed their degraded condition. I also checked the king pins and tie rod ends.The tie rods ends are good only needing cleaning and re-greasing. The king pins are another story. The passenger side had a bit of slop, about .006” - .008” of radial movement as measured at the bottom of the yoke. I’m not talking about thrust clearance. The drivers side had .002” - .003”. So my question is how much movement is too much?
Since I almost had the entire front axle out I decided to remove the shackles to check them. They appear to be OK with no excessive wear. I do however need to replace the rubber grommets (grease seals).
My gut feeling is at least the passenger side will need to be replaced.
Its no wonder the truck wandered!
I decided to remove the spring mount and use bolts instead of attempting to re-rivet them. The limited space was the driving force. Removing them was a not easy. After reading several post on this forum, I decided to drill the heads, out to 3/8, then shear them off with a impact hammer. That worked well, however when I tried to use a drift to punch them out the rivets just rung indicating they were really tight. I decided to drill a bit deeper with a smaller bit so I didn’t hit the spring mount or frame. Using a 5/16” bit I went in another 3/8”. The the rivets punched right out.
This technique was one I learned as a machinist. I’ve removed many bushings by concentrating heat on the bushing and avoiding the outer casing as much as possible. The idea is the bushing is going to expand with the heat but the cooler casing is not allowing it to grow outward so it expands inward. When it cools it contracts the OD and the bushing usually falls out, taps or presses out easily.
In this case the drill acted as the heat source. I didn’t use a coolant, allowing the bit to heat up and it was enough to contract the OD of the rivet. The side rivets were fairly easy but the two under the frame were another story. Laying on my back I tried drilling out the rivets with little success. I ended up using a 2’ long piece of 1x2 pine and a block of wood as a pivot to apply some upwards pressure on the drill. That finally did the trick. What I wouldn’t do for a lift right now.
It was the right call removing the spring mount rather than trying to re-rivet it. The holes in the spring mount were tight but ones in the frame were oblong. The worst was .450”. Looks like I’ll be opening them up to 1/2”.
Much more work to do!
Last edited by Phak1; 08/08/2019 1:45 AM.
