Well, I've hit a road block. That king pin will simply not move. I have my 12 ton hydraulic jack applying down force. I then heated the end of the axle to a dark red. Nothing moved. I even applied additional down force persuasion with my 5lb sledge. Nothing moved. Any ideas on what else to do?
heat the top and bottom ?
liquid orange.. rosebud :)
PS most king pin presses are 30T - 40T....
I know you removed the wedge bolt didn't you
They can be a bear you may go back on Mon with a 16 oz hammer and they come out you never know
So...seeing how this is a king pin post... I guess I have been retired to long...when did they come out with these ?
Clifford, anyone else had any experience with these STEMCO Kaiser NO-REAM Spiral Steel Bushings and Pins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz4rsl2Xkck (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz4rsl2Xkck)
Quote from: luvrbus on May 30, 2015, 05:58:26 PM
I know you removed the wedge bolt didn't you
Wedge bolt? As far as I know there isn't one on an MCI 96A3. The parts manual and maintenance manuals do not refer to a wedge bolt and I didn't see one. I did remove the nut on top of the king pin and the expansion "cup" at the bottom of the pin.
If no wedge in the bottom where you took off the cup there should be a retainer ring
Quote from: eagle19952 on May 30, 2015, 05:48:28 PM
heat the top and bottom ?
liquid orange.. rosebud :)
PS most king pin presses are 30T - 40T....
The spindle is loose on the king pin. I guess I thought the pin should slip right through the top and the bottom and the problem is the taper in the axle.
I borrowed my neighbors torch and he doesn't have a rosebud tip. I did not get the end liquid orange, just a dull red. Should it be hotter? I was worried about getting it too hot.
Quote from: luvrbus on May 30, 2015, 07:17:53 PM
If no wedge in the bottom where you took off the cup there should be a retainer ring
Yes - I did remove the retainer ring.
How is the bottom plate holding the pressure? It doesn't look even as wide as the spindle indicating the amount of steel left between the hole for the pin to pass through and the edge of the flat bar looks to be very minimal.
Just a suggestion to strengthen your press assembly, straighten the flat bar cross plates and weld in some additional bars on edge at the outside edges of the cross plates so they don't bend like that. You may be able to apply greater force with the bottle jack.
I guess I'm confused. Isn't the pin supposed to push out the bottom of the spindle hole... kind of where you have that bottom plate on your press rig pushing back up?
The king pin has about 3/4" to move before it will encounter the bottom plate of the press. So, for the time being, there is no interference between the pin and the press. I will take the advice to beef up the press and see if I can get the full 12tons of force applied to the top of the pin.
Another round of heat won't hurt anything, right?
It is common to need in excess of 25 tons to get them to move.
Quote from: Brian Diehl on May 31, 2015, 06:20:37 AM
Another round of heat won't hurt anything, right?
The old welder told me two things...
It was broken when you brought it here...
And
They had to heat it to make it...
I have no idea about your part of the world but when I get one that won't move the Snap/On dealer will bring his press to demonstrate the press for sale and will press mine out for a Carl's Jr burger lol I don't believe he has sold one of the high dollar suckers in 10 years
Are they supposed to go down? I always thought they dropped in from the top. Maybe you should push up, instead of down.
They go down and come out the bottom
the steel that you are jacking against would better serve if it were rotated up 90 degrees, and wider/laminated with another... same on the bottom. the jack pressure is doing more to bend the steel than push the pin.
dumb question...how many grease fittings are on the steering ?...top bottom and or the center section that you heated ?
I don't know if you got it out yet.
When i did mine, i built a press, apllied heat, and yelled alot
Finally i removed a few more srts till i could get a good swing at it.
2 shots at it with a 12 lb hammer, and it dropped out.
Good luck
Yeah - King Pin is out! Yes - the king pin is pressed down and out the bottom. I reinforced my jacking "jig" both top and bottom. Then I jacked until I hit maximum pressure with my 12 ton jack. I then got the torch out and started heating the end of the axle. 60 seconds of heat and the pin popped.
The pin looks to me to be toast. The bottom of the pin is all corroded and even appears to be heat stained. The inner upper bushing just slid right out. Both the lower and upper outer bushings are not original. They are the spiral style of bushing as shown in the video posted by eagle.
I'm going to bring the king pin and bushing up to JD @ C&J Bus on Tuesday and see if he thinks the spindle can be saved. I'm hoping it can be!
Lower spindle bushing
Upper spindle outer bushing
Upper spindle inner bushing
Finally - the parts diagram blow up for reference
Notice the upper inner and outer bushings labeled #2 and #18.
Well...
part of the reason that I asked about the spiral bushing is now to determine how long ago it was installed.
Stemco says that those need to be greased twice as often.
I am thinking they went with those because they were over worn.. hope not.
Question... what is bolt #7 if it isn't a wedge bolt ? steering stop ?
Did you loosen #26 and #27 ?
Glad you got it :)
Bolt 7 is an adjustable steering stop. One on each side. I don't think it has anything to do with the king pin, but I could very well be wrong.
Brian
Brian on my 77 8 i changed my steering arm there was a recall and thay came out with a heaver one.i would look into that since you have it apart. maybe someone else knows more about it.
Correct - bolt seven is simply a steering stop. It has nothing to do with the king pin.
Brian, if I may ask, what symptoms made you pull your kingpin in the first place?
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Scott - I found out the king pin was loose while checking to see if there was any play in the wheel bearings. This was last fall. There wasn't an extreme amount of play, but enough I was wanting to get it fixed. I had C&J Bus Repair replace my driver's side king pin about a decade ago. At that time they found that spindle had nylon bushing in it. JD told me that when the nylon bushing start to wear they tend to ruin the spindle. This was what happened to my driver's side spindle. When he discovered the nylon bushings on the driver side he told me if I ever noticed wear on the passenger side to replace as soon as possible to avoid having to replace that spindle as well. Hence, when I found movement in the king pin last fall I determined I would prioritize replacing the king pin.
Now with the hub seal leaking problem I've had I recently tore the whole hub apart again. I figured since I was half way to the king pin I might as well go the rest of the way and replace it at the same time since everything was already torn down. I'm glad I did. I didn't find nylon bushings thankfully, but it was still time to be replaced. It wasn't bad enough to be any sort of mechanical issue or danger to anyone else and that is why I didn't tear it apart immediately upon finding it last fall.
Today I took the spindle in to C&J Bus and they were able to press in new bushings, ream the bushings and send me on my way with a new matching king pin. Tonight I got the spindle installed and things are starting to look good again. I still need to reinstall the brake spider and then install the hub. I can't install the hub until I get the new hub seals (Scott Seal Plus XL). Those should arrive later this week. I'm hoping I'll have everything back together early this weekend ready for a test drive. Things are looking good!
Quote from: Brian Diehl on June 02, 2015, 06:43:14 PM... Things are looking good!
Nice work, Brian. And congrats on the success. Thanks for keeping us informed; I learned a lot from this thread.
Cool beans. Let us know how the test drive does
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Thanks for the kind words. I have the spindle entirely back together now. I'm just waiting for the wheel seals to show up. Hopefully they show up on Monday as UPS tracking says they should. I'll feel a lot better once it is all back together. I'm always a little unhappy when my bus is not able to be driven.
A picture of everything back together waiting for the wheel seal...