Steering Spindle Bushing Question

V

Vic in E-TN

Well-known member
A few weeks ago I posted a question or two about the king pin bushings and the difference in the inner paths for the lubricant. There were good answers and I learned a lot. Over the last 20 years I accumulated about 10 pairs of spindles. I set up two to use to paint wheels and another to use in balancing wheels and tires. I have been helping out my club, the Smoky Mountain Model A Club in our spring tune ups. I have looked at several cars to reset the brakes, bearings, etc and checked the tires on jack stands for side to side movement and top and bottom movement. I found several top and bottom movements that indicated king pin looseness. I spent some time writing up an article for our monthly newsletter. I was asking for responses and am expecting to get more. There is a need to replace some bushings. The cost to purchase from the vendors a bushing reamer will be near $300. We will see what we do for a club tool. The bushings need to be honed to get the correct fit. Today I went to one machine shop to see if they could hone the bushings. Their price was $50 to hone 4 bushings. I have never seen what a bushing honing machine is and I thought their price was excessive. The bushing reamer has not been purchased yet.

Can anyone describe the necessary machine or method to use? I measured a new set of king pins and used some 320 and 600 grit wet sandpaper on a 0.75 in dowel rod to play with one of the old spindles to get a good fit.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Vic
 
This has been discussed many times on different forums. Many experts and users of honing have posted about it's benefits. $50 to hone 4 bushings is an excellent price. Here's a link to a video showing how it is done.
 
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Randy in ca said:
This has been discussed many times on different forums. Many experts and users of honing have posted about it's benefits. $50 to hone 4 bushings is an excellent price. Here's a link to a video showing how it is done.
Click to expand...

I agree 100% that the quoted cost is quite reasonable. This how my front bushings were done, on a Sunnen Hone. They fit great. I have a video similar to the above from when mine were done, but I can't attach a video file here and I'm too lazy to upload it to YouTube.
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I have never seen a Sunnen hone in action before. Thanks for the video. Question remain - Does the shop's hone come in various sizes? Do I get the reamer first? I do not trust the machine shop to put the correct bushings in their proper place - top or bottom. I need to make sure that the bushing hole lines up with the hole in the spindle. I will press in the bushings myself, see how the king pin fits and work from there. It looks like my credit card number will be sent to one of the suppliers when I figure out what other things I need.

I was out and I went to buy a 1/8 in NPT tap to put in new grease fittings in the spindle. No luck at Home Depot or Lowe's but another supply house had an "American Made" tap for only $34 + tax. I bought a tap and an R drill combo for less than $10 on Amazon.

You learn things every day.
Vic
 
seems too cheap, must be in a low labor cost area,
My first couple sets of kingpin bushings were done with the reamer then I bought a Sunnen honing machine.
After less than 10,000 miles the reamed ones had play, had to redo them .
Reamers work best on uninterrupted surfaces , the lubrication grooves can cause chatter of the reamer resulting in a low percentage of contact area especially if the angle of the reamer flutes match the angle of the lubrication grooving
 
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I reamed my bushings so they were a little tight then used a fine lapping compound to get them to a final size. It took a few hours per side but I have about 2200 miles and they are as tight as they were when they were installed. I will keep track of them but so far so good.
 
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