king pin questions ?

looking at my king pins on my 51 ford , the bearings are on top, what would be the reason for this ?

 

i don't know about any ford, but my hudson has thrust ball bearings on the top of the kingpins to somewhat carry the load of rotation.

 

Someone put it together wrong. The axle sits on the spindle, the bearing should go in between the bottom of the axle and the bottom of the spindle.

 

car or truck?

 

Depends on the spindle/spindle support design. If the spindle support ("axle") sits in the middle and the spindle bosses are above and below, then the thrust bearing would be on the bottom.

On the other hand, some spindle supports have the bushed king pin bosses above and below and the spindle sets in the middle. In that case, the thrust bearing would be on top.

Ray

 

car, coil spring

 

weight sits on top of spindle