Thread: not quite a hot rod but it could carry one

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Howdy Gang,
I'm helping a friend replace his king pins in a 1998 Ford F600 crane truck .
The tapered keeper pin that holds the king pin in has broken off with most of it still in place.

We cut the king pin apart with a grinder to get the hub out of the way.
Using a air hammer then a 20 ton hydraulic jack set up still that pin will not move.

we used Mapp gas torch to heat the axle then soaking it with Moovit.
Lots of beating with a good size short sledge hammer and drifts.

There is about 3/8" threads left on the pin - maybe I mushed the threads over.

I looked at the rear side where the pin goes in and see what looks like a circle weld around the pin. I also see the "P" oil bubbling around the pin.
Been beating on it for a few hours

anybody have any helpful tips thanks
hank

You might try grinding the pin flush with the knuckle on both sides to nice, shiny metal, and then heating the knuckle and whanging on the pin with a pin or drive punch instead of a drift. I don't think the pin is hardened, though it might be, but you might have to resort to drilling, or at least trying to drill it. If you can drill it, I would only drill about three quarters of the way through it, and get into it with a pin punch, heating the knuckle, of course.

I have drilled them out but it ain't no fun

You mention heating with MAPP gas. With the mass of the spindle you may well need more heat than a bottled MAPP gas torch can provide to heat the entire spindle end apart from the pin (to the extent possible). I'd try to get an acetylene torch and heat it thoroughly before whanging it with a good sized hammer and an appropriate punch. If you see that the pin is mushroomed consider grinding it flush to eliminate that interference from the equation. Drilling it out is a bit dicey, as it's a tapered pin and drilling an easily get into the spindle vs the pin.

thanks for the tips guys
I was afraid to really heat the axle thinking it would mess up the temper and let the axle bend

Okay, this has been fermenting in my haid all night, and this is my thinking on drilling the pin: by drilling a blind hole into the pin just deep enough to get a pin or other straight sided punch in there to drive on the bottom of the hole, it might have the effect of stretching the pin enough to reduce the diameter of it ever so slightly, and getting the taper to let loose of it; it might even work without the heat. You may have already gotten this thing all done, but this is something to file away for future reference.

you guys have given me lots to think about I'm just about ready to head back over to the farmers garage and try something different
thanx
hank

Originally Posted by TOW'D

you guys have given me lots to think about I'm just about ready to head back over to the farmers garage and try something different
thanx
hank

I think Rrumbler's right, drilling a blind hole is going to tend to release tension on the taper, and applying your force to the bottom of the hole will be good. Should work, if you can drill straight into the pin.

I'll offer this, may sound silly but I've seen someone mix up the end he should've been banging on and was actually driving the taper in tighter. Make sure you're beating on the end that has or had the threads.

No dis-respect meant I've just seen it before!

We borrowed a smoke wrench with a rose bud and got everything hot and the broken keeper pin drifted right out,

my reamer wasn't quite big enough for the king pin bushings so we used a brake cylinder hone and some valve grinding paste to fine tune it. new grease fittings
and it is going back together !

thanks for the spiritual help
hank

Ain't no problem big enough a large rosebud and a really big hammer won't fix. And when that fails a judicious supply of jack daniels will solve what remains of the problem.

Was gonna suggest drilling the pin, then heating to get it to shrink on itself, then it would drive out. But stuff stuck like this doesn't normally respond to anything other than lots of oh-two and acetylene thru a big rosebud....mapp is kinda like using a candle, but ya do what ya gotta do.

"If I can't fix it, I'll fix it so nobody else can"

Originally Posted by dieseldr

Ain't no problem big enough a large rosebud and a really big hammer won't fix.

If you can't fix it with a BFH, you have an electrical problem.