The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Replacing King Pins (Should I?)

I'm in the middle of a frame off, and I'm working on the suspension. Someone had said I should replace the king pin sets. There doesn't seem to be any play in the spindles and everything seems secure and in fine working order. Should I still replace the king pins for good measure, or is this unnecessary? Thanks guys -

Trevor

If it is a frame off restoration, and you are going to drive it, for good measure I vote for replacing them.

Ditto, your there take um apart.The thrust bearings will need to be replaced at the minimum.By the time you get that 50 year old greese out of the pasages it'll be time to go to bed.My 53 chevy pickup turns with one finger.Good luck

Clean the old grease out and then see if there is any play. Don't do any more work then you need to.
Someone may have just replaced them before the truck sat for 20 years.....
They could be worn, or they could be new, check and see.

Trevor

I agree with Grigg.
If you find, with your parts cleaned (old grease can disguise a lot of wear), that they are worn - replace everything that needs it. But you may already have parts that are good for thousands of miles

For those of us not real familiar with king pins --
how exactly do we check for king pin wear?
(What gets cleaned, what gets moved, what gets checked?)

Thanks,
mark.
51 KY 3100

You grab the wheel or hub vertically & push & pull. Any movement in the king pin is looseness. Put a grease gun on the fittings. Grease should flow out of the edges of the spindle. Turn the wheels back & forth by grabing the tire or hub horrisontilly. They should turn easily, unless you have power steering. A small amount of play in the kingpins is tolerable depending on what you want out of it. There should be no play in the tie rod ends or drag link.

One over looked area to be cleaned is at the end of the axil where it goes together with the king pin. If you look in the back of the spindle part you see a hole or cavity that gets full of hard grease and dirt. Take something and knock out this junk as it causes the truck not to turn as sharp by binding up the axil end and the spindle part. This area is a couple of inches deep.Youll be surprized at how much stuff is in there.

King pins are relatively easy to get to with the body on so there's little incentive to do it now just because you have the body off. As others have said clean and inspect the axle/king pin area. I literally spent hours scraping & chipping my 38. If you actually need to replace do so. Replacing just because you can or it's perceived to be easier now & not because you need to is wasting money.