Our Man Bob writes:
>
>Shame all that works not going to make that 4/4 go faster :)
>
Here we go again... :-/ Poor Bob is back on that speed thing. Maybe out
there (thar?) in Texas the roads are nice and straight but here in the
garden state there's an off camber turn every 100 yards or so, so speed is
secondary to road manners... a close second but second none-the-less. Or
rather: speed IS road manners and road manners IS speed. That's what this
dang (!) king pin repair is all about. How can I go zooming around the
back hills with the front end handling like a bowl of soup (with
appreciation to Innes Ireland)?
Anyway, back to the front end (so to speak). I thought that a bit of an
update would be diverting for one or two of you, and then, of course, I
have several new questions that I'd appreciate getting some feedback on.
Actually, the disassembly went pretty easily, considering the copious
quantities of grease and road grit that I dealt with. I used the tried and
true method of Our Man John, described in his tech page, and it worked
fine. I employed a pair of threaded rods, as per Mr. B., to gradually
loosen the springs. This was made a tad easier by using a ratcheted box
wrench. I was hung up for a time by the discovery of odd sized bolts
holding the calipers to the hub. I suspected that Our Man Whitworth had
reared his ugly head here. Tragically, I don't own a set of Whitworth
sockets/wrenches (gotta do something about that, see below). Fortunately,
Our Man Joe (my local lbc mechanic) does, and he actually loaned me his for
a short time (under pain of death if I didn't return them, which I did) and
the calipers came off double quick. The only other hassle was the brass
(?) fitting of the right-hand side one shot: I managed to split the line
unscrewing the fitting (this after the PO had rounded the head of the
fitting itself, so I used vice grips (a tool of ignorance). It was ugly
but effective. I haven't ever used my one-shot (so to speak) and don't
intend to in the future, so its not a death blow here but I will still see
about either a new pipe or repairing the fitting. Otherwise, just lots and
lots and lots of grease and grit to wash off. Its the adult version of
finger painting (something Our Man Bob might enjoy, come to think of it). ;-)
So, the spindles, bushings and kingpins are in line at the machine shop for
pressing and honing, and I contemplate my next move. I had debated
replacing the shocks, as long as I was there and the front end was in bits
but there's nothing wrong with my shocks and I sort of hate to fix
something that isn't broken.
While all of this front end stuff is going on I need to take a closer look
at my steering box. I reported earlier on a leak at the seal there. I now
am in posession of a new seal and intend to replace it. All of this leads
to the following questions:
1. Any experience out there with the dismantling of the steering box? (I
haven't seen it mentioned on the tech pages; I suspect its one of those
things no one ever has to do.)
2. Any suggestions on a supplier of whitworth sockets/box wrenches?
3. It it remotely possible that reassembly is the reverse of disassembly?
Well, that's about all for now.
cheers,
Will Zehring
|