Redoing Ford type spindles

I'm going to take some pictures and post them tomorrow but I have been working on the frontend all this week. The old kingpins were worn out and I'm using the old spindles on the new axle. I found out that no one has the reams to ream the bushings out. I finally found one at Grizzley. Also I wanted to be precise on the clearance so I made two pilots to line the bushing up for the ream. I have not done one of these in 50 years so it was a learning process all over again. I wonder how many people have run into this problem when rebuilding their kingpin type frontend? The parts stores and frontend shops simply do not work on these types of frontends.Roy

 

Roy.. I had the same situation on my early spindles on my Fiat altered. But since I fabricated the front axel and king pin bosses. I just used a straight reamer and reamed the spindle and axel bosses out and used drill rod for the king pin and ground in the lockpin relief by hand. Also heli-arced on a washer on top of the pin, just a tad larger than the pin, It was like a 1/2" washer or something, then just welded it on using the center hole..Just for safety purposes. That has been on there like that for 10 yrs now with no problems what so ever.. It worked for me.. ****.. AKA ThingyM

 

round here the engine machine shops have Sunnen honing machines with the right size hone. Supposedly honed bushings are better that reamed. At work we have adjustable reamers with pilots that we use. It's a little less than scientific, but it works well.