Hi, Craig.
You are doing well, aren't you ;-)
I assume you are meaning that the lowest bush of all, the fulcrum one, is
oval. So, two choices...
If there is definitely no play in the kingpin & bush assy., it might be
worth just having the fulcrum bush replaced; you'd still need a specialist
for this but it would probably be cheaper. In theory, an adjustable reamer
would work on this single bush.
But, if you haven't checked for play wih the assy. on the car, you might
have play which is only detectable with the weight/leverage of the wheel.
In the old days, the job involved putting new bushes in the old swivel and
reaming them to fit a new kingpin -lower bush usually already fitted. In the
UK, your local friendly BL agent would use a special, stepped reamer to open
the bushes out to tolerance.
Nowadays, the marque specialists sell the whole shoot on exchange, assembled
and ready to fit. I assume that, unless the bearing surfaces if the kingpins
are *perfect*, they must still use new. I don't know of anyone over here who
bothers with home disassembly and trips to an engineer for reaming. May be
different there.
BTW, Rex, my '72 BGT is much better with front end rebuilt-definitely worth
the effort.
Dave Hill
> I disassembled the passenger side front suspension on my '71 B earlier in
> the week, and remarked about the numerous DPO botches (including
non-proper
> strength grade bolts, home-made bushings and lack of use of split pins on
> the nuts). Nothing too serious, and the replacement the offending bushings
> and bolts should do the trick. Took the driver's side apart today, and the
> botches on this side are definitely worse. Along with screw-ups similar to
> the other side, the DPO did not bother to fit rubber seals, thrust washers
> or seal supports to the lower trunion, allowing all the grease to ooze
out.
> Now I have a badly ovaled trunion opening, meaning a new kingpin for this
> side (this is getting expensive). There is no play in the kingpin, just
the
> ovaled trunion opening. As with the passenger side, the lever shock on
this
> side had absolutely no action (as expected). Also, one of the A-arms was
> badly twisted (new ones already on the way for both sides due to a
> previously noted welding botch by the DPO). Now the question. What is the
> best replacement option for this kingpin assembly? I remember hearing
> recently on the list that unless you have the kingpin reamer, you are
pretty
> much stuck buying a new swivel axle with all the bushes already pressed
in,
> etc. Is this true? If you do not have to buy the whole swivel axle, how
> difficult is the kingpin replacement? TIA.
>
> Craig
> '71 B
>
>
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