Well, the Death Wobble has annoyed me for the last time.. (Hopefully). I was lucky enough to stumble upon Border Parts while searching the web... They had everything I need in stock and were very friendly and helpful! Got the kingpin kit and a number of seals, ujoints, bearings and doodads. So I'm about to begin... After I degrease the area and finish this beer I will admit that I am a bit frightened of this project... So any advice is welcome.

A few questions before I begin.. Any specific tools that will be necessary ?

I don't have a torque wrench... Can I get by without?? (Money is super tight, otherwise I'd buy one)

How many beers are necessary for this project.??

Thanks in advance!

 

Working on important stuff is a zero beer process.

 

Yeah I figured... I cant start a project on a saturday without ONE beer though..

Oh and does anyone happen to know the part number for the Moog TREs that come with the crossover steering from NWF??

 

Got to the stickey.....there is a thread on rebuilding the king pin front end.

You will need a big 7/8 hex end socket, or bar to get the cones out. Even then it's a tough go to free those up.

 

I ordered a Sunex 45062 3/4" 7/8" hex impact socket from Summit racing for less than $20

 

sooo how can one be sure that the kingpins need to be replaced?? I got the passenger side taken apart just before dark...Upper KP is shiny but not really worn in any unusual way... The older gentleman at Border Parts made it seem like its rare for the cone to go bad and set me up with basically everything but the upper and lower pins. I have to go back on monday to get a carrier bearing and driveshaft ujoints at which point I will have inspected all of the KPs.

 

Well my thought is if your in there, then you may as well replace them. I would think it hard to see wear on a cone...probably harder to measure as well. The kit I bought had them in there, so I just replaced them.

Are you replacing your inner axle seals?

 

I thought the same thing but John assured me that unless it was obvious that they were damaged the. They are fine... But I won't be putting it back together for a few days so maybe I'll get a pair anyway. Yes I will be replacing the inner axle seals. I'm a bit nervous about all the seals and bearings.

 

you really don't need a torque wrench, just tighten all nuts and bolts in a manner consistent with good workmanship!

 

Thanks!! Thats what I was hoping to hear.. Ill be thoughtful and when the funds permit, Ill get a torque wrench.

 

This is my thought. Some plastics will wear steel steel faster than bronze bushings.

And They are next to impossible for most of us to measure at home.

 

Well I got the drivers side apart this morning... Definitely found an issue.. The kp was unthreaded about a full turn and came all the way out with no effort. There is a wear mark where it seats from the nasty wobble I assume.. I will definitely be purchasing upper and lower kps. What do you guys think about that wear spot on the knuckle?? Will a new kp seat properly? It's not awful but it's there for sure.

 

Wow it was loose...I have not come across that before. Heard of it as a potential problem....but not come across someone who actually had one come loose.

Well not much you can do about the wear in the Knuckle...best to just install the new ones with a bunch of red lock tight, then crank them down with a cheater bar and a good pull.....they should be torqued to about 600ft/lbs I think? I put a 10' cheater bar on my big 3/4" craftsman wrench and gave it a good hard pull.

 

well, I finally got all the new parts... then cleaned and painted the old parts.. and now Im running into a few issues.

Issue#1- the knuckle I put together looks amazing.. but feels pretty tight when moving it. I realize all the parts are new so it should be tight but what should it feel like??

Issue #2 -The brake rotors i got are wrong.. The parts store said there were two options so they gave me the closest match. When I got them home I realized they looked a bit different so I took them back along with the originals.. They assured me I had the right ones but after I painted and installed them they actually dont fit Im going back to speak to the manager tomorrow after work.

Issue #3- after I got frustrated about the new rotors I decided to put everything together with my old rotors because they really are not in terrible shape.. Everything was going ok until it came time for the small c-clip on the axle shaft... No matter what I did I couldnt get the axle shaft far enough out or the hub far enough in..

end result is and taking EVERYTHING apart and putting everything away.

I will start again after I cool down later in the week.

 

John may be a nice guy and may be very knowledgeable, but I think that he is giving you bad advice. It is not that hard to replace the pins. The rebuild thread is on this page a few threads down called "OK, lets do our Dana 60 4X4 king pins"...Mark