Hiedi hambers ,,,,,,,,! Curious if anyone has any knowledge of the higher priced kingpin sets for 37 to 48 or so aftermarket ford spindles ? Mainly with discs upfront . Is it a waist for the needle bearing type or just plain old king pins suffice ? ,,I know the principal sounds appealing ,,just dont have the experience with em yet ! Any advice as always is greatly appreciated ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,C.D.
Don't have any experience with the Royal King Pins yet...................A friend had a highboy 32 that I drove a couple of times...............he then replaced the bushings with the SSB kit and I drove it...........it almost felt like the car had power steering vs the bushings. This was just my feeling from driving the car a couple of times. I also put them in my Coupe, it has not been on the road yet.
yeah, its a easy way to waste a few hundred bucks you could spend on speed equipment, I dont see the relationship between disc brakes and kingpins, the speedway catalog says if you have disc brakes and 400 hp you need them, what a joke
Why do today's Class 8 big trucks still use bronze bushing kinpins? Why would you need to spend the money on needle bearing type kingpins for an axle with a lot less weight on it? Good workmanship on reaming the original style bushings and using a good quality grease is money better spent.
If looks aren't too much of a factor, Deans hotrods in Az. sell teflon bushings. They work pretty well. They just look like fido's ass on a fenderless car.
MMMMMMMMM ,mixed emotions ,,,! Damn thanks for the input . Im there on the expense part ! In essence the less resistance approach on turning force sounds appealing ,,. Thanks ,,,,,C.D.
Just a thought here,,,,,,,,I don't see where disc brakes have any "bearing" on the subject.LOL It seems like a good idea on the face of it,but one might also consider that although they may turn easier at first,they probably will "brinell" the pin from road pounding and get hitchy or loose,like what happens to a U-Joint. I think I'd stick with bushings until someone else I knew had 'em had a bunch of miles on 'em say,,,,25K or so to see how it works out. Just my .02.
I'd say 125K... or more. That's what bushings last. And the brineling would be my concern too. Roller bearings work best when rolling, around and around like in a wheel bearing or fancy racing crank like an Offy. Besides, they would cut down the load carrying surface drastically, adding to the brineling possibility. If it ain't broke...
ive been looking into them myself, i was more looking at the wear factor, do they hold up longer than bronze bushings? ive replaced the ones in my truck twice in the 6 yeas ive been driving it, i drive it everyday and once they start to get a little wear i get some wobbles, so time to replace, im using a sunnen pin hone to hone them so they are a little more precise than the old reamer. i think next time i might try a set for fun, hell its just money! jeff
Both of you guys have legitimate concerns, but, as Yo Baby pointed out Universal joints are in the same situation. But unlike his scenario properly maintained U-joints last half of forever. Likewise roller tip and full roller rockers are the norm anymore for engine builders. I read a long time ago from Gene Berg of VW performance fame, he refused to use roller rockers on his engines for the same reasons you guys bring up. His opinion but a minority one and one that has been minimized by hundreds of thousands even millions of full roller rocker engines in the world. I do not have any empirical data to support the use of these type of bearings for king pin usage. The main concern would be the lack of activity with pounding road forces causing brinelling. However, with the proper bearing and bearing surfaces I don't' see a huge problem with them. That said, a bushing set up with proper fitment and grease packing turns amazingly well. Most guys don't pack the thrust bearing before installation hoping that it will grease itself when the pump a bit into the bushing. It does but not well enough. I have had fantastic success with honing my bushings to final size and packing the bearing with a good high pressure molly grease, I use Lucas sticky red grease.
Ujoints with proper drive line angles will rotate the needles near a full turn and more with suspension movement, which is why they live so well. A kingpin however may not move the needle a half turn on a mile or two of straight road and we KNOW how smooth our roads are Right? But either way a shot or 2 of grease every 1000 miles will go a long way to making either live and last a long time. My old 54 Chevy I had 45 + years ago had lots of metal to metal joints in the front suspension . Ran it 100K and never replaced any front end parts, but it got a lube job every 1000 too. But a over 3000 pound car with no P/S and wide tires may be a good application for the needle bearing pins.
What El Poloko said,,,,,,,,, ""I do not have any empirical data to support the use of these type of bearings for king pin usage. The main concern would be the lack of activity with pounding road forces causing brinelling"". That's what I was thinking,particularly the "LACK Of ACTIVITY" not moving the lube and the bearings around part. 125K would be a better test than 25 for sure.LOL I think I'll stick with bushings. I hate change.
I like the early Packard set up. It had ball bearings top and bottom. Move that near 6000# less than 1 mph and it steers like power steering. Needle bearings? I don't think any of the rods we play with are heavy enough to need em. The bare block on a Packard 12 weighs 575#. The radiator holds 3 gals of coolant, just the radiator! The frame looks like a 2 ton stake truck. Unless there's a lot of lead in your sled...even then, why?
I'd make the assumption that with discs and 400hp it's gonna be driven hard. Maybe speedy Bill makes the same assumption. Personally, all my OT cars with high horse/short wheelbase have power steering. It's 100 times easier to keep it pointed in the right direction and necessary if you're driving it hard on the street. Will be looking into the bearing kingpins for my own rod if the hemi/4 speed turns out as brutal as we hope. Probably a lot of good arguments to be made for either kingpin, but it should be noted that pretty much every automotive bushing application has changed to needle/roller bearings these days, even stuff like pilot bushings that worked fine for 50 years previously. Out of curiousity, anybody know what late model heavy trucks use on their front axles? I don't.
Big trucks still use bushings. The hot tip here is a spiral wound bushing that does not need to be fitted after instalaton made out of stainless steel. Kysor makes them. Half again to twice as much as the standard kits but with regular lube seem to last a very long time even in on/off road use like dump trucks.
Sounds good but must have something top and bottom the keep them from walking out? Didn't Ford use that idea in the rear axle of the Model T? And how does it not need to be "fitted"?
Well Dr.J big trucks normally have either bolt on caps or freeze type plugs on the ends of the kingpin holes. Keeps dirt out and lube in . Those spiral bushings are precisson made to size. Think like a square section Heli-coil. Not a T expert so don't know about that. Ford did use replaceable thin split races for some of the straight roller bearings.
I used the SSB Royal Kingpin kit on my '34. It helped steering, but then my old kingpins were shot, so it's not a valid comparison, really. I'm sure new bushings would've been fine too, but with that early Ford steering gear, I was looking for all the help I could get! Will I use 'em on my next build - maybe. Grease is the word.
i work in a kenworth dealership the stock bronze bushing are maybe good for a 100k a company called kayser makes a spring steel replacement that needs no machineing to install but no small applications that i can see thier are better solutions that the old bronze bushings
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