With the car sitting on the ground at normal ride height, have a friend grab the top of the front wheel and push inward toward the center of the car and then pull outward away from the car. This must be done with some degree of force. While your friend is doing this, take a bright light and look carefully at the point where the spindle rests on the top of the rebound spring ( that is the small lower spring at the bottom of the kingpin). Look for side to side movement at this point. This is where the most wear occurs on the kingpin. With unworn parts there will be no movement, the greater the sear the more the movement. More than 1/8 inch of play at this point is an indication of worn out bushings and probably kingpins also. 1/8 inch of wear at this point probably equals about 1/2 inch or more of movement at the edge of the tire. Movement at the edge of the tire can also indicate play in the front wheel bearings. That is why it is important to look at the interface of the rebound spring and spindle to ascertain exactly where the play is located. Regards, Greg Solow -----Original Message----- From: L.D. McLaughlin, Jr. <ldmcjr@zebra.net> To: Morgan Mailing List <morgans@autox.team.net> Date: Friday, March 05, 1999 7:19 PM Subject: kingpins >Just how do you know when the kingpins on the front are worn out and need >replacing? My car still rides great at 28,000 miles on it... > >Tony >-- >http://www.zebra.net/~ldmcjr > >ldmcjr@zebra.net > --------------------------------------------------------- >Fellow Mog-o-philes: > >I am about to undertake a front end rebuild on my 4/4. This will involve >new kingpins, bushings, upper and lower kingpin springs, and some blood, >sweat and tears as well. Any one out there who's done this and can offer >advice on the job? Any mog-specific pitfalls? Will my local machine >shop be able to deal with the new bushings and ream them to the proper >size (i.e. are the mog kingpins some berzerkoo size?). All advice, >comments, flames, donations, and pecadillos (!) invited. > >Will "low man on the learning curve" Zehring Will: Should be a straight forward operation for any machine shop, the only trick is making sure that the bushings are reamed absolutely parallel. They will feel snug on installation but will wear very quickly in use if not perfectly straight, I've done this job about two dozen times (not all on my car!) and have made up a special pilot to fit my reamer to ensure this. I actually make the bushings and kingpins up myself on my lathe using top quality rotocast bearing bronze which seems to last longer than the ones from the factory, the kingpins are steel stock ground to 1.000 inches, not an unusual size. Should take you no more than four hours to do the total job, when re-installing the pins use an extra pair of longer bolts to pull them up into place tightening each one a half turn at a time then replace them one at a time with the stock bolts. I'd be happy to fit and ream them for you but I'm in Victoria, British Columbia, maybe a little too far away. Good luck, Jim Walters ----------------------------------------- It isn't difficult- in fact if you buy the bits from Heart of England Morgans in the UK, they'll send you some rather good instructions! Things worth remembering: The springs are powerful, normally with the engine in the car you can use the weight of the car to compress the spring, so dismantling involves taking the oiler bolt out and the assembly disintigrates! No engine means you need a spring compressor. Ream the bushes in the stub axle carrier, not separately and don't make it a slack fit, as effectively you will be building in wear. My local machine shop has got used to me and now line bores the bushes in the carrier tightly to the pin, it slides-but only with lubrication! Putting it back together can be a little hairy- use a bit of welding rod to help line up the king pin with the top mount and oiler nut- if the spring slips, it will bounce off the garage ceiling! (this is perhaps a "Morgan Urban Myth", but I don't want to be the person who finds out!) Don't strain the brake hose, not everyone I know takes the hose off, but some have had a lot of practise. (This is much easier with an older car with cycle wings). Incidently, those of you with garage queens, I get 20,000 miles from a set of kingpins and bushes and need to change them every two years. I know of the odd person in the UK who is lucky to get 2000 miles from a set as corrosion sets in before wear. -- Jeremy Edwards 1972 Morgan 4/4 1970 Opel GT Melton Mowbray, England --------------------------- Will, A good idea is to have the kingpins hard chromed, expensive but worthwhile. There are bushes available made from some sort of nylon type material, our local Mog dealer supplies these. Trouble is finding a machine shop that can deal with reaming these. I eventually gave up and went and bought a set of phosphor-bronze bushes from the local bearing supplier. Cheers Steve Moore Dr. Stephen Moore CSIRO Tropical Agriculture Molecular Animal Genetics Centre Level 3, Gehrmann Laboratories University of Queensland St. Lucia, 4072 Australia ph 61 7 3377 0476 fax 61 7 3377 0480 email Steve.Moore@tag.csiro.au -------------------------------------- Be sure to install the bushing into the stub axle BEFORE you have them reamed! Then besure to take the kingpins to the shop with that stub axles and keep them matched!!! John John T. Blair (WA4OHZ) - jblair@massolant.navy.mil ----------------------------------------------------- Alison, Pas this info on to the intrepid Mog fixer...... Step 1 get Fred's Bedside Reader. It is a great ref. Step 2 Visit the tech pages on the Morgan web at SOL <A HREF="http://www.team.net/www/morgan/">SOL's Morgan Web</A> and print out John Blair's front end rebuilding info. Step 3 Make a tool as Fred describes in his book to crank the kingpin up & down. I made one in a few minutes out of threaded rod. To make it easy to use, I put a left & right bend in one end to make it shaped like a crank handle. Then I slipped a short section of copper tube on the lower end with a flat washers at each end of it and ran on a lock nut. This makes a nice little grip which turns. Your Dad's hands will really like this. Step 4 Watch him do one side, then dive in and do the other side for him :-) While you're at it, bleed the front brakes; repack or replace the front wheel bearings & seals and do pads & a rotor turn if it is close to front brake time. Cheers, Ken Payne 63 Plus 4 4 seater, 61 Mini, 65 Saab 96 P.S. I took mine down in one evening. Then did a corner an evening including caliper rebuilds, bearings, races etc. It really is pretty simple just follow the instructions. P.S.S. When cranking the pin back up, watch that the top of the upright(spindle) does not get caught on the bottom edge of the steel sleeve inside the spring. ----------------------------------------- Alison Moffett <morgan1@erols.com> writes >Help! > I'm staring at the front suspension of my 71 4/4 in bewilderment. >I've got new kingpins, bushings, damper blades, etc., but before I willy >nilly start to unbolt things and have springs ricocheting around the garage, >I thought it wise to seek counsel. I know in principle how the thing is >supposed to work but need step-by-step instructions in >disassembly/rebuild/reassembly. Call it a front suspension primer for the >Morgan neophyte. Any instructions/tips from the Morgan fraternity would be >much appreciated. Leave nothing out. > Fred Sisson, if you have your ears on, I understand that you publish >a most excellent book called "The Morgan Bedside Reader" (or similar title). >I think I need it. How can I get it? >Many thanks to all in advance and greetings from Springfield, Virginia. >Neill Moffett (daughter Alison has computer and Morgan1 address) > I've lifted this from something I wrote more than a year ago, I hope it helps. The Clarke manual has some details. "Things worth remembering: The springs are powerful, normally with the engine in the car you can use the weight of the car to compress the spring, so dismantling involves taking the oiler bolt out and the assembly disintigrates! No engine means you need a spring compressor. Ream the bushes in the stub axle carrier, not separately and don't make it a slack fit, as effectively you will be building in wear. My local machine shop has got used to me and now line bores the bushes in the carrier tightly to the pin, it slides-but only with lubrication! Putting it back together can be a little hairy- use a bit of welding rod to help line up the king pin with the top mount and oiler nut- if the spring slips, it will bounce off the garage ceiling! (this is perhaps a "Morgan Urban Myth", but I don't want to be the person who finds out!) Don't strain the brake hose, not everyone I know takes the hose off, but some have had a lot of practise. (This is much easier with an older car with cycle wings)." -- Jeremy Edwards 1972 Morgan 4/4 Melton Mowbray, England ------------------------------------------------ I completed the same exercise about 12 months ago. I'll grant that the mog front end is... out of the ordinary, but the rebuild isn't really _that_ bizarre. I found the best description of the process comes from the Morgan web site, offered by OUR MAN, John Blair (owner of an award winning Morgan 4/4 (aka the thinking man's mog). Check out his prose at: http://www.team.net/www/morgan/tech/art001.html There is also a figure that you can click to that's on this page. Familiarize yourself with the hardware and the proceedure before you begin. As Jeremy said, you need to respect the power in those springs. As in all front end rebuilds, regardless of the car, if the tension in the spring is released suddenly, SERIOUS injury can result, if your face gets in the way of the trajectory of the spring. I used the 'threaded rod' approach discussed by John and it worked fine. Once you're back on the road, and you feel the benefits of having 'freshened' up the front end, you'll be glad you did it! Morgans handle like they're on rails, and with a fresh front end its even better. Again, tho, I can't over emphasize the importance of using the threaded rods to gradually release (during disassembly) or to gradually introduce (during re-assembly) spring tension. cheers, Will "Dang, I luv this car" Zehring ------------------------------------------------ George: There is a hole drilled from the space between the bushings to the underside of the Bronze spring damper plate to allow grease to get up under the bronze damper. If that hole is blocked the bronze damper plate could be dry. Since there is a lot of space to hold grease in the king pin assembly and this hole is so small it is the last place the grease will flow . When greasing my front suspension I always pump grease until I see it come out from under the plate at the base of the spring. If your bushings are very worn the grease will come out the bottom of the Kingpin and this plate will never get any grease Of course pumping more grease is too simple a fix, so it must mean you need new bushings :) Also I have found that grease will sometimes back up the 'one shot ' oiler tube and all the oil goes to just one side. . Bob Nogueira > Date: Saturday, 13-Feb-99 05:23 PM > > From: NORWOOD \ Microsoft Network: (NORWOOD) > To: MORGANS \ Internet: (morgans@autox.team.net) > > Subject: +8 steering creak > > My 1993 Plus 8 occasionally succumbs to creaks/groans when turning the > steering. It would be appear to be a dry joint/bush somewhere around the > front suspension. I usually pump copious quantities of grease into the front > bushes to eliminate it. > Has any one else experienced this problem, as I wondered if it was weather > or temperature related? > Cheers, > George