king pins

[tynall44]

how hard is it to replace king pins mine are greased regularly but when its off the groung it has a little play ,, is this bad

[FORDification]

Well, it ain't good....if there's slop, then they're definitely needing to be replaced. As far as it being "hard", that's a relative term. However, I personally don't think it's hard. You just gotta drop the front suspension out, strip it down to the bare I-beam/spindle combos and then drop them off to the local machine shop. They'll press out the old bushings, press in the new ones and then ream them to fit the kingpins, then replace the kingpins and button everything up. Then it's just a matter of bolting everything back together.

If the kingpins are regularly greased, you might luck out and be able to remove them yourself, but you'll still have to have the machine shop press in the new bushings and ream them....IF you're replacing them with steel bushings. You can get kingpin kits with plastic bushings, and those can be done in your driveway, but I don't recommend that. They don't last nearly as long. I say if you're going to do something, do it right the first time, so it doesn't have to be redone.

The kingpin kit will run you about $50, and the machine shop will charge you another $50 or so to do their job.

[bugser]

You got that right boss. I did the old manual removal and replacement on a 66 I owned. Got a great workout and invented new words!

[rboeding]

I got mine replaced at a local place called Zellners. I had rebuilt the entire front suspension except the kingpins. The replace the kingpins and did an alignment for 420. That was a price I was willing to pay based on what I have read about driveway replacement. Yhey even cleaned the spindal and Ibeam and put a coat of black paint on it.