The edit option is not there and I need to correct a bit of info. The long breaker bar is made of 1.5" square tubing, not 1" as indicated. The painted blue part is 1/4" thick steel. The point is that it needs to be stout ..Mark

 

Done. Let me know if you find more.

 

Great, thank you...Mark

 

Many thanks to you and others posting these excellent writeups.
Is there a good way to test to determine if you have an issue with the king pins, I have looked and not found a good way to test.?

I replaced the upper busing and spring with the wheels still on and after reading this I was thinking I could pull the lower king pin and check it and the bearing without doing a full disassembly. I am trying to track down a wobble issue, already found and replaced a bad wheel bearing and universal joint. It is better but still happens some over 35 miles per hour.

 

Thanks, Other than the death wobble, mine seemed tight and good. There was no unusual movement. I think that the spring and bushing are so tight that it hides any slop and it is only apparent under load and only with wobbles and such. I am far from an expert and maybe a front end specialist will chime in. I am waiting on my new lower king pins and will post pics. I think that if you jack it up until the wheel is off the ground. then put a block of wood under the wheel to take the leverage off the knuckle, that you can pull the lower out. If anything, you may need to loosen the upper bolts first...Mark

 

I was thinking about what you said and, while changing the lower pin cap itself is doable with the wheel on, you would not be able to change the lower bearing, seal and cup without removing the knuckle...Mark

 

Fantastic Mark. I'm hoping this is the culprit of my tire wear even though the shop gave my front end their "blessings". Nice having a well documented write up like this for motivation to get it done in a long afternoon/evening. Great job, and we all appreciate it.

 

Excellent write up, Mark. I'm sure I'll be doing mine in the future, and will have to print out this thread... or read it a few times.


Where did you get all of your parts for the rebuild ? The place in your link ?


Complete kit or individual parts ?


Thanks


T.

 

Thanks, I bought the king pin rebuild kit and upper king pins and the tool from quad4x4, the tie rod ends and u-joints from rock auto and the lower king pins from extreme axles. All the links should work. The kits are available on ebay, just search dodge king pin and some come up that are not listed for our trucks, but are exactly the same. There is a link on the first page for another option. In my opinion, I would buy the strongest tool, the allen wrench and socket, not the L shaped one. I bought a 20 dollar, 3/4" breaker bar at harbor freight. The left upper king pin was removed after applying heat and PB Blaster. The right one, i skipped the heat and lube and got it with just the tool. So, I don't know if the heat and lube is really necessary. Remember though that I do not have to deal with rust, 1 benefit of living in a desert Mark

 

Thanks, I don't know how one could really tell if the king pins are bad, without some way to simulate road conditions. It is a very strong, very simple design, that takes a lot of abuse. Mine has around 300k miles and even though they were bad, they were not near catastrophic failure or anything. Another thing is that my tie rod ends on the center link were VEEERY bad, even though they seemed good on the truck...Mark

 

Sorry, I am referring to the links in this thread...Mark The links in that thread are dead, so just google dana 60 king pin rebuild kit and several suppliers come up...

 

Well, I got the new lower king pin caps installed and I learned a few things:

1. you can remove the lower king pin, without removing the wheel, but you cannot replace it. You have to loosen the upper bolts to take the spring pressure off. All in all, a less than 1 hour job

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63170901@N03/5794221012/http://www.flickr.com/photos/63170901@N03/5794221012/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/63170901@N03/, on Flickr

2. I wanted to replace my new napa tie rod end with a moog like the other side and it sure helps to have a good separator:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/63170901@N03/5793662621/http://www.flickr.com/photos/63170901@N03/5793662621/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/63170901@N03/, on Flickr

Makes the job a lot easier ...Mark

 

I cleaned up my old lower king pins and found this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63170901@N03/5794885705/http://www.flickr.com/photos/63170901@N03/5794885705/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/63170901@N03/, on Flickr



http://www.flickr.com/photos/63170901@N03/5794885753/http://www.flickr.com/photos/63170901@N03/5794885753/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/63170901@N03/, on Flickr

This is the right one, the left one looks good and, yes, that is a crack and it was obviously spreading. I don't want to think about what may have happened if it had sheared off on one of those shoulderless roads in Mexico. The good news is that it is pretty easy to check the lowers, see above ...Mark

 

Congrats on saving yourself a huge headache..... and maybe a wrecked truck....


Makes me wonder about mine....

Thanks again for making us aware of the possibilities


T.

 

I thought I would put in a 4 month, several thousand mile report. No recurrence of the death wobble. It steers much better and I am still driving on my home set 1/16" toe-in. Even though I also replaced my front u-joints, I believe that the badly worn right king pin and bushing was the cause of my death wobble. I also believe that the failure of the upper bushing, on the right side, allowed lateral forces to be applied to the lower king pin, causing it to crack. As a side note, I also installed rear disks and am pleased to report not a single problem with the brakes. I am now going to go knock on the nicest piece of wood that I can find ...Mark