Has anyone installed and ran the Royal King Pin sets available at speedway, macs and other places? I am considering installing a set on my '53 Ford and I am wondering if anyone has comments about it.
I've used them many times. You can definitely feel the difference in the steering effort. They also seem a bit more forgiving in the death wooble situation but are by no means a cure all. They will tighten up the front end a bit and give great "road feel". I'm putting a set in my roadster for the above reasons. Are they worth the extra $300 for the good ones? I think so. The cost is somewhat offset if you don't have a ream to dress the stock style bushings and they technically should last just about forever. I will say I have always used the name brand ones and don't know about the Speedway ones.
That setup utilizes needle roller bearings in place of the steel backed bronze bushings. These needle bearings run against a stainless pin. Needle roller bearings are normally used in conjunction with a hardened inner race. That race is of a hardness than cannot be filled. I do not know of a stainless steel that can be heat treated to a Rockwell hardness of 65 or greater. It may work fine for a few years but eventually that stainless pin is going to wear. Can you say "sloppy". Just run a set of kingpins & bushings sold by NAPA or a local parts house.
I agree with Buckster with the understanding that most Rods don't ever approach the kind of mileage that a typical passenger car would. The intent of the roller bearings is not to increase service life but to decrease steering effort and improve "road feel", which they excel at. I have many sets in customer cars since virtually the day they came on the scene and several of my own cars. I have yet to replace any of them and generally my clients drive the wheels off their rides.
I just took them out of my Shoebox. In my option they are junk! Had them in for three years and 10k miles. They got loose and the car got the death wobble right at 55 mph. I put regular king pins and bushings in and fixed the wobble. Problem is the spindle holes aren't lined up perfectly. That's why you have to use a piloted reamer on the bushings to not only size them but to align the bushing. So now you put needle bearings in the spindles there is no way to align them. The pin slides in but is not making full contact with all the needle bearings because they are off center. When I pulled mine apart you can see the wear marks on the pin from the needles just on one side of the pin. And yes I greased them a lot. I think I still have the pin I could put up a picture of the marks on it. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Tudorfritz I've had the same problem with my 41' Ford Convert. I've owned this car since 1962 and never had any shimmy in the steering at all. The first time I took the car for a test ride after installing those kingpins the car went into a violent shimmy at about 35-40 mph. I got rid of most of it with one new tie rod end and a little toe in adjustment but it's still there. They are coming out!
This is one of my kingpins I removed. You can see the wear pattern worn into it. It's worn similar on the top 180* so you can see how the bearings are out of line. And since only half the bearing are making contact with the pin they are taking more of the load, and will fail sooner. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Put a set in my 40 when I built it a couple yrs ago sometimes it has a wobble the it doesn't.Have American Classic tires and have had it aligned 2 times but
Had to finish my talk computer just loaded it had ft aligned 2 times and pulls a little tight to left easier to right.These new alignment shop don't really know old stuff.Maybe it is the roller.I"ll keep reading this thread.
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