Kingpin Rebuild - mklotz70

[mklotz70]

Only took a couple of pics to post. The rest if vids and I still have to upload them to youtube.

 

 

 

 

[mklotz70]

 

[mklotz70]

 

 

.....one more still loading....I'll post the link tonight.

[hardslammed]

awesome mike! very helpful so far and i've only had time to remove one spindle so far.... :lol:

 

one thing i can't seem to figure out for the life of me is how to remove the lower control arms? is there another locking type pin holding the torsion spindle dealio? i'm stumped :hmm:

[mklotz70]

[mklotz70]

awesome mike! very helpful so far and i've only had time to remove one spindle so far.... :lol: one thing i can't seem to figure out for the life of me is how to remove the lower control arms? is there another locking type pin holding the torsion spindle dealio? i'm stumped :hmm:

 

The factory service manual is on the tech page of www.olddatsuns.com

 

There's a cotter bolt that holds the lower fulcrum pin. Be extremely careful removing it since they're NLA. The two big nuts on either side of the lower pivot point(fulcrum pin) of the dogbone are put on at about 180+ ft lbs of torque, so they're hard enough to remove. The fulcrum pin cotter bolt then has to come out in order to get the fulcrum pin out. It's a good reason to rebuild the kingpins on the car. :)

[dat521gatherer]

Wow that king pin is nice and snug in the dog bone. I've done 4 and there was a was a massive amount of slop between them which is why I was so concerned about the collar bolt seating correctly on the king pin.

[mklotz70]

The parts book and the service manual call that the "cotter pin" for the kingpin, but I tend to call them a cotter bolt......thought I read that somewhere, but I could be wrong.......anyway.....

 

I cleaned that bolt up and sanded the round part down a small amount.....it went in sooo much better and farther. I think it will seat on the flat spot very nicely now. The bolt wasn't going in at all before I sanded it.....so there's no way the flat spots would have mated up correctly.

 

Interesting that you had so much play with the kingpin in the dogbone. I don't remember how much there was on my wife's kingpins. I've got three more to do still, so we'll see how much play is in the others. I wonder if someone did some sanding or grinding on yours before. Kinda strange that it was two different sets though.....I could see one set being like that, but highly unlikely for two.

[ohmrchristopher]

Ok my 2 cents. Do you have to keep the shim pack together? Could you not put one shim on the top, it would get grease and prevent the metal on metal wear of spindle/dog bone, then have the rest of the shims on the bottom with the bearing? The shims are sacrificial in the whole scheme of things, and I also believe that with proper greasing you can have the metal on metal contact and be OK. But for those nit-pick anal guys who are afraid of their spindle/dog bone eating each other I think you could put a single shim at the top and be OK.

[mklotz70]

Yep...I think that's definitely an option. I actually thought about doing that, but while shooting the vid, I just forgot to even bring it up. I like that option more than the shim pack on top. :)

 

......and guys..... thanks for watching the vids!! :)

[hardslammed]

The vids have helped a lot mike, thanks again... Above I was asking how to remove the lower control arm itself. I need to get these bad boys to powdercoat and they're just hanging there lol

 

I gotta admit tho, watching this process I cant help but think ball joint swap

[mklotz70]

If I had 3 or 4 sets to do at one time and used the best/easiest tools.....ie shop press.....it wouldn't really take that long to do.....BUT....it would still be a pain in the butt!

 

Couple of pics from today...noting special......vids uploading now.

 

 

 

 

 

[dat521gatherer]

are the 520/521 kits the same as the 320?

[mklotz70]

Yep.

[mklotz70]

 

[mklotz70]

http://youtu.be/E0zs_huzPQg

 

[mklotz70]

 

[mklotz70]

 

[ohmrchristopher]

More awesome videos! So I just tore into my Kingpin kit for some visual examples. Everything is there but it looks different. One (pair) of bushings has a much thicker wall then the other. Is this a 620 thing only? The kit is by TRW. Also, my hardware package contains two cotter bolts/nuts, two rubber cups with a metal embedded washer (with a hole in the middle), two metal seal rings, two o-rings, two metal caps with threaded centre holes, and two odd looking screws with spring loaded closed centres. Have you ever seen a kit or part like this?

 

Two equally poor quality pictures.

 

 

[mklotz70]

hhmm....you're going to want to go double check the part numbers.....maybe against Rockauto? There's tons of older vehicles out there that used kingpins....no telling what they came off of. I certainly don't recognize them. I've had 6 kits and looked at kits from other guys.....they're all like the ones I have now. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think there's any difference between the 521 and 620 kits. The cotter bolt in the 521 kit is already metric. Both manuals are on the tech page of olddatsuns.com....you can look up the 620 rebuild info and see if the specs match the 521's I've posted.

 

edit....5/21/14.....the 620 upper bushings are bigger!!  The pic posted doesn't come up any more, but I pulled out a 620 spindle/dogbone the other day and they're definitely different!

[ohmrchristopher]

I bought all my parts off Rockauto. In both the pictures, the TRW kit (mine) and the RAYBESTOS one, the parts are similar and it shows one bushing being bigger than the other (plus the threaded, spring loaded grease cap thingy). I've read the manual, I have a hard copy, its a very vague, it only explains pounding out and pushing in the new ones. The only clue, is Fig. FA-8 it looks like the upper bushing will be the bigger one, again very crude and only an eyeball. The Hayne manual says "This operation is considered beyond the scope of the home mechanic because of special tools, reaming, and fitting grease caps, etc, etc" :rofl:

[ohmrchristopher]

Oh wait, the Haynes manual does say this:

 

"Do not forget to insert the 'O'-ring on the lower end of the steering knuckle support. Install the thrust bearing and spindle shim(s) together with the spindle, towards the spindle support. Shim(s) to be selected to give the specified clearance."

 

O-ring ?? Well that answered one question I guess?

[mklotz70]

Interesting. I have some 620 spindles at home....but since I'm on the ipad for the weekend while I'm in Spokane, it will all have to wait :)

[ohmrchristopher]

enco is down!! wahhh I wanted to spend money!!

[oldskoolvws]

Hey Mike, you should make a batch of those long bolts with the shoulder on it for those who want to try this on the truck or who have little tools. Have you tried pressing out? I want to use my press.