King Pin Thrust Bearing Clearance

Posted by Roger Dean on September 13, 1998 at 09:49:34

I am doing a total restoration and am at the stage of bench-rebuilding the front end. I've just installed the king pins and find that the thrust bearing under the head of each pin turns quite freely, even after using all the steel shims that came with the king pin set (2 on each side). I have .004" clearance between the head of the king pin and thrust bearing on one side and .007" on the other. All the advice I can find warns me to make certain the weight of the car is carried by the bearings and not by the felt washer cup at the bottom of the assembly. This is all fine advice, but on a bench assembly where there is no real weight on the axle, how do you know what "good enough" is for the clearance? As it was, I had a some trouble getting the spindle assembly over the axle.My guess is that anything less than about .010" is probably good enough because all that will happen is that the felt washer cup will compress until the load is carried by the bearing. But I just don't know for sure. Can anyone help??? Thanks.

Follow Ups:
Re: King Pin Thrust Bearing Clearance Joel Rapose Sep. 14, 1998 at 09:29:58(0)
Re: King Pin Thrust Bearing Clearance Roger Dean Sep. 14, 1998 at 07:05:18(1)
Re: King Pin Thrust Bearing Clearance Dave Sturges Sep. 14, 1998 at 09:08:43(0)
Re: King Pin Thrust Bearing Clearance H.L. Chauvin Sep. 13, 1998 at 15:25:04(0)
Re: King Pin Thrust Bearing Clearance Marco Sep. 13, 1998 at 14:07:27(0)

E-Mail Comment to Webmaster