Say, we need to buy or borrow a king pin reamer for Dad's '37 Ford F-100 truck. We'll probably need to do the same thing to a '36 Ford pickup as well (future project). What's the best (and cheapest) source for a reamer?
Put the new bushings in yourself,and have a machine shop fit the pins. They use a pin hone like the type for fitting piston pins.It does both bushings at once.
What Irishsteve said. No matter how good the reamer or operator is, reaming leaves some sort of chatter marks whose high points wear first and allow the pin to be sloppy on the bushings and premature bushing failure. I was taught that lesson just after indoor plumbing and electricity were invented. I drive new bushings in and then off to the machine shop where a good Sunnen pin hone finishes the bushings to a perfectly round condition and guarantees long life, provided you lube them regularly!
all the above are correct, use a sunnen hone. Even new king pins can vary a half a thou and the hone guy should catch that and make them fit perfect.
In addition to all the above, true kingpin bushing reamers are somewhat hard to find (compared to what a lot of sellers are calling kingpin reamers but don't self pilot) and the ones out there are generally north of 150 bucks. Haven't looked at one first hand, but I'd bet they come from China or India which may or may not be okay. There's not a lot of tolerance between a good fit and too loose. I've got a Sunnen bench hone, and with that its very easy to keep the bores in line and creep up on a good fit.
How many shops have anything like that outside of a standard Sunnen hone set up? I would say you need to find a restoration type shop. A comparable job can be done on a conventional mill with a lot of set up time.
I used a standard engine rebuild shop and their hone for my spindles. $35 total which is less than you can purchase a decent reamer for and the surface finish and accuracy from a reamer is not nearly as good as with a hone.
Last time I did an axle I paid a little extra and had Nostalgia Sid do the kingpins and bushings along with a drop. Saved lots of time and hassle and they were perfect. But, I have honed bushings before on a 56 Buick and it was specifically for king pins where the reamer was in both bosses at the same time to keep it straight. It went fine and is still not sloppy last I heard.
One of the first tools I bought as a senior in high school was a Ford kingpin reamer. I've used it a bunch over the last 55 years and have never had an issue with the quality of the work it produces. I just had the spindles off my roadster after 10k miles and they showed no appreciable wear. The old reamer/installer will work just fine...
Just went through this and had a terrible experience. I have an early reamer, correct .814". It is useless as none of the new bushings I could buy, from both Bob Drake and Thirdgen, when installed would let the small end of the reamer in. The ID was too small. So I took them to the machine shop, as mentioned above. On the pin hone on both spindles to get to the correct thumb pressure fit for the pin they had to remove a ton of material and cut through the brass and hit the steel liner of the bushings on both. Now I'm back to square one. The current bushings available simply are not the right size. Find NOS bushings or do not bother. I'm going to order the bearing kit and cry at the price and be done with it, I have already wasted enough money.
^^^ yes^^^ I've seen this before. That's why I prefer adjustable reamers, also with adjustable reamers I can take small cuts and not nick or or chatter the new bushings and I can set the clearance where I want it. A sunnen hone is nice but not necessary, millions of King pins bushings fit with an adjustable reamer thru the years and they did just fine. It's experience and knowledge that matter. I've seen guys beat the pins thru bushings, I've seen guys not install any shims, I've seen them put the thrust bearings on the wrong side etc, any way to screw one up and I've seen it..... people are amusing creatures sometimes. ..
Reamers will follow a hole, be it straight or not. Standard accurate hole sizing in a manual machine shop (lathe or mill) was drill, bore and ream. A reamer used correctly will hold a size better than a boring bar, unless it has been set up for production. The finish on a reamer from my experience is quite satisfactory for a king pin.
Snyder's Antique Auto sells a dedicated Ford reamer that does both bushings at the same time, though it shows currently out of stock online. You could try contacting All Ford in Cambell, CA, that is where I got mine even though they are just reselling the Snyder tool (the Snyder price tag on the packing tube was the giveaway). The bushings I just replaced had no play after 16 years of use, I only had to redo them because I heated and dropped my steering arms so they got cooked from the torch.
I recently purchased a king pin set and when we began reaming with the adjustable ream, found the pin was a couple thousandths smaller than standard. The adjustable ream could accommodate this.
My old man taught me how to replace kingpin bushings and ream them with reamers back in the 60's. They always did a good job. There was no "send it out and have them replaced". All that did was tie your stall up for a couple days. Last kingpin job I saw was just before I retired years ago. Guy doing it sent them out. I offered to replace them for him but he just gave me a dumb look. I reminded him how much $$ he was making the 3 days it tied his stall up. I still have the toolbox full of reamers. All different sizes from about the size of your little finger to almost the size of your fist. Like to get rid of them but have no way to move/ship them. I can barely lift the metal tool box there in.
Certified engineer and degreed machinist here so agreed. I was not suggesting a reamer wouldn't work in this application as they have been used for decades doing just this. My comment was that there are potentially less costly means to achieve a better finish without spending time doing it yourself.
Just my thoughts, but say a quality piloted reamer is 175$. vs taking things into a shop. There are no machine shops open on the weekend around here, so one would have to take time off work, probably twice, to pick the parts up. Sometimes it’s just easier and more convenient to do things on our own time vs saving $$.
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