[The Art Doctor]

Probably too much in one post but here it goes.


To answer my own question above I did eventually find an image of the front assembly, and yes I have to correct. Image below is 32 but the same and I got it right.


To come full circle on the king pin issue I wound up buying a NORS set off eBay. They were no better in roundness than the currently available stock. It was not a total waste as it did come with new brake rods and I needed one as my had been welded on and was too long. I checked them with machinist dye and they too had high spots. I did not bother filing one of them down like I did the current stock items because once I got that one to round it was too small for the bushings as properly reamed. If I had an adjustable reamer or a machine shop hone new bushings could be sized to them and the correctly rounded and thus somewhat undersized pins used but I am not going to do that. So in the end I put the old Ford script stamped king pins back in and they fit perfectly with the prescribed thumb press fit in my freshly reamed bushings, go figure genuine Ford parts fit and are perfectly round. I'm going to keep an eye out for used Ford pins to put in my spares pile for future need though I know of a hard driven '32 with 150,000 on a set of king pins and no wear at all. The originals did not have shims under the bearings nor lower washers/felt seals. I did not know to check bearing play before I took it apart. The new upper bearings take two shims but I still have bearing motion by hand underweight but if I put in three it is locked up solid with no weight on it. I left two in, this is correct? Now I am second guessing and thinking I should scrap the new bearings and I just use the old Ford bearings and no shims. What would you do?


My new issue, its always something, is with the king pin locks. I damaged the threads on the old ones getting them out but I can still fit them in for test fittings for shims and bearings and they fit great. The new ones barely will go in even with an 8lb mini-sledge hammer smacking. The originals were 1/8" out from flush one one side and fully flush on the other, I can barely get the threads to stick out the backside on the new ones and they sick out about 1/2". I tried to pull one through by putting on the nut and tightening it up but simply pulled the last 3/16" of threads out of the nut and off the end of the pin. The holes in my axle are either too small (unlikely) or the pins must be too big or ???? Are the new ones sized for worn old axles and mine is too good??? They look similar but there are slight differences in the machined angles between original and new (I do not have tools to measure the circumference and ID of the hole that accurately). I ordered some old stock from Southside Obsolete, hopefully they will fit better. Super frustrated on this.