How To Replace A King & Link Pin

How To Replace A King & Link Pin

(00:00) Welcome back to Just Kampers. In this video, I'm going to show you how to replace the king and link pins and their associated bushes. Now today we're going to be doing a Porsche Speedster, but it is exactly the same as the VW Beetle right the way up to 1965. So the first thing I noticed with this Porsche is that we have a little bit of top-to-bottom movement on the actual kingpin itself, so I've adjusted our wheel bearing up snug, so I now haven't got any wheel bearing movement, and I can actually top to bottom it and
(00:29) I can feel that I've got that movement in the kingpin and I can put my hand behind and do it and actually feel the movement there so I'm going to go ahead by removing the road wheel and our drum and uh getting it stripped down so we can get those king and link pins in, so this is our king and link pin assembly off of the vehicle now as you can see these are our link pins so these pins go through here there's bushings in here, and then we have shims either side as well and that helps us determine the right angle for our stub axle and in the

(01:01) centre goes through is our kingpin, and that's where we've got wear on this item at the moment, so we've got movement in here. So effectively our stub axle is doing that when it's on the car so we're going to get that strip firstly we're going to clean it because it's absolutely filthy as you can see all the old grease and rubbish so we get that clean and then we can get the rest of these uh link pins pushed out they're fairly tight in there at the end. I mean, they're loose when they're in there like that, obviously

(01:32) we've got to draw these right out on both sides on here as well so let's get it cleaned up and see if we can get it dismantled so back on the bench nice and clean I've managed to drift our link pins out and I've used a punch and a copperhead hammer to do that quite simply, and as you can see these are all the shims that go with our link pins now there's 10 shims that go for the top link pin and tensions that go for the bottom you may have six one side for the other four one side six the other in the manual once

(02:02) you measure the offset of the arms which I'll go through with you it tells you how many shims to put either side whether it's on the inside or the outside but again I'll go through that when we get to that point so our next point of work on here is to remove these limping bushes now these drift out quite easily with a hammer and a socket you can do it on a press if you've got a press, if you haven't got a press to hand let's say a hammer and socket will do it so that's how we're going to do it because we haven't got a press here at

(02:28) the moment so I'll show you guys how to do it without a press. I'm going to use the thighs because it's nice and solid so we're going to place are arm on here like so get it nice and flat use our socket and we're just going to get these bushes moving yeah as far as that one goes again same with this one you've got them started I'm just going to place them in the jaws of the vise I'm not going to do them up but I'm just going to use that as a support and also make sure we're on the flat so we're not damaging this surface on the other side

(03:15) tap through make sure we've got clearance just open up a little bit more to finish off with a longer one nice and gently with our copper hide small same again as long as we're across the jaws got good support on this face we can tap these out quite easily sometimes if they're really tight you will need a press so if you find you can't get them to move you'd probably have to go to your local engineering shop and get them to press them out for you nine out of ten times are generally just just tap out with a hammer and a socket

(03:56) there we go so drifting the king pin out can be quite tough because it's very tight in the center part and loosen these bushes this is where it wears in these bushes here so we have to force this through here now we even can use that with a hammer and a punch or if you find that it's really stiff again you'll probably have to get that pushed out by your in local engineering company on their press I've managed to get this to move so I've used the old link pin and use the old link pin to drive our kingpin out and

(04:27) then I've used one of the old link pin bushes to allow that Kingpin to slide through again I'm using the voice because the vice is nice and solid so we'll try and get that last bit out okay so the last little drift Manchester knock that pretty much all the way home so I'm gonna have to and get that off like so so obviously you can see the old Kingpin starting to come out take that out I'm going to have to use a longer punch to get down there to knock the rest of it out again I will use the old bush in from the king from the link pins

(05:07) just keep tapping away so we're very nearly there drifting our pin out we've only got a tiny bit left in there and we're going to use the vice Jaws to use the face to be able to tap our last bit through so pretty close now just going to tap our last bit through so you need to take a little care and not hitting your hand here so I'm saying if you don't feel comfortable using the hammer with the drift it may be worth getting the engineering company to push down for you. I'm so close now, there we go, we're out

(05:42) stop axle with our thrust washer on there we need to retain that we're going to replace this there's a nylon bush in there as well so we'll replace that so incidentally if your kingpins not tight into your Hub then you'll probably need another hub assembly because the Kingpin should be tight in this section here and it should be free to swivel in the bushes in this part of our link pin assembly so these bushes are the next job for us to push out some which we'll do that's our next little job so that was good there's our old Kingpin

(06:19) so I suspect all are aware was in our bushes as it was extremely tight to come out of our stub axle so again we're going to set this up in the vise and then using a bit of tube that I've cut to the right it's the right diameter tube I've just cut it and made sure I've got a nice straight edge we're going to use that to tap our bushes out and see what happens we need to put something between here so we don't damage this part and so that felt pretty tight so I'm going to put that okay see if we can get them moving

(07:02) so now we have our kingpin removed we've managed to drift that all the way through so we don't need that we're going to replace that then we can take the stub axle off of our link pin hub part like so and in here is a thrust washer so in the cap is just a nylon washer and a cap we will be replacing that this is what we need to retain here this is our thrust washer so we get that nice and clean we'll keep that and as I say we have a new nylon washer to go on it that's that so we're back to our link pin part and our kingpin bushes are

(07:36) still in here so we need to drift these out next that's our next job so we're going to do that on the vise like so so we need to support the part as I say because we're using a drift again if you're using the press you still need to support this part I'm going to use the vise so we can support that I have a piece of tube I've already done one I've had a piece of tube that is a good diameter it's a good correct diameter to fit over the sit on top of the bush sorry and that should help us drift that through so let's see if we

(08:10) can get that moving first I feel like I moved straight away again make sure that we're pushing the bush in between the jaws of the vise that's our old bush drifted through do the same with the other side there we go right so that's our bushes removed so we give these another good clean up now make sure we've got some good faces and we haven't done any damage today which no we haven't that's good make sure they're all nice and clean we'll take our grease nipples out and clean through there as well make sure we haven't got

(08:54) any debris behind there obviously we don't want to be pumping grease into it and moving debris around our new bushes so let's get that clean ready to fit our brand new kingpin bush into our thrust face side so again we're going to use our solid part of ice we're just going to drift him down until he's flush using our little bit of chew that's the right diameter to sit on the bush like so it's just going to gently tap them into place lovely so it was just a bit high still so we're just going to go down to this

(09:30) just flush or just under foreign being broached off as it was going in it's nothing to worry about it's just a Bush fitting in there nice and tight then we do the same with the other side this time we have to come through this side you could do it through that way if you had a smaller punch and another press that side on on the press as we're just tapping it in with our Hammer we're going to use coming from this side you can use our tube make sure we started nicely yeah so you have to make sure that bush is square before you start driving him

(10:12) through as you can see he's driving through nicely so there's a little bit material broached off from the outside of the bush but there's nothing to worry about so we'll keep going for these flush yeah good he's down through and he's gone down far enough we can get our gun down far enough so we can get our link pin bush through okay the next thing we need to do is just file out these grooves now those grooves are to file out to hold our cap for our thrust washer assembly so we'll do that next now I've clamped him in the Vise with a

(10:48) little bit of leather just to protect our faces and then I'm going to go through with our file and file our grooves for our front washer to locate it taking care only to file the bush and not the uh length in arm, nice so we've got our lovely groove through there that'll hold the cap in place we have our nice new bushes pressed in I've cut the groove out for the thrust washer cap to sit into so our new kingpin doesn't fit through the bushes yet the reason it doesn't fit through the bushes yet is because we need to ream those bushes now we need to

(11:24) ream those bushes so they're in the same plane as each other so we can't just ream one and then ream the other they need to be rimmed together so we do have a special reamer here this is our special agreement now this is ring to 18 millimeters so we'll place it through our first brush as you can see then it will guide through the second Bush we'll cut the first one and then we'll guide through back the other way now if you don't have an 18mm reamer that's this length because obviously you need to go to through both bushes at the same time

(11:58) then you need to take it to your local engineering shop and get them to put an 18mm reamer through it either on a machine or with a hand reamer like this so that's what we're going to do next I'm going to get it in the Vise and we're going to get it reamed let's do it so we're going to start this side I've got a bit of leather in the vise we're just going to put a little bit of cutting fluid on our reamer or a little bit of oil if you haven't got cutting fluid just something to give it a bit of lubrication take the friction away when

(12:25) we're cutting so we're going to slide this in as I say the bottom part is slightly smaller than the cutter and that acts as a guide and now we're going to put the flat jaw pliers here so I can get onto the drive side bit I'm just going to put a little bit of force down and ring through in one direction until we're through it does feel like it's cutting nicely just again taking our time with it felt like it went through then yeah it did excellent that's the first bush cup and remove our material that we've cut out gently withdraw our reamer backwards

(13:09) or the opposite direction to which we cut so right good just give that a wipe and move this to the edge so we're going to cut through the bottom bush now as well so we've cut our top Bush using the bottoms of guys and now we're going to cut the bottom brush using the top as the guide so I want to be able to make sure that I can go all the way through the reamer a little bit more cutting oil on the so you can slide him through so obviously we've already cut the top bush slide through that fairly straightforly easily

(13:39) right now we're down to cut our second bush so the same again I'm using flat drill pliers just gently apply some nice pressure downward of course it's now using our top guide our top Bush as a guide to parallel cut the bottom so there we go through let's cut through nicely so we're going to draw that all the way through now it's good so there's no chattering on the face there looks lovely we've managed to parallel ream all the way through both bushes so let's give that a clean up and fit our kingpin let's try our nice new

(14:20) kingpin in our nice new kingpin bushes that we've just reamed with no grease or anything these it's nice and clean and dry again no grease or oil on that any goes so the Kingpin should be able to go through both bushes should be easy to turn like it is but have no play so if I grab hold of this and lift this yep no play that end no play that end so we've parallel roomed that perfectly hold link pin to drive the rest of our new kingpin through so you can hear it's getting quite tight on our stub axle which is good we want it tight here and

(14:59) loose well loose but we wanted to be able to move on the bushes I'm just going to keep gently driving that through checking it as we go it's all looking good they're going in easier then this one came out because sometimes they're quite easy to push out sometimes they can be quite difficult we're not far away now to get this one in really close to the top of the bush now so it looks good I'm just going to check the location of where kingpin comes through looks really good so assess the kingpin in feels lovely so next we need to get our

(15:41) link bushes back in ready for our new link pins to go through our new link pin bushes have a grease hole in the bottom so we have to make sure that we line that up with the bottom part actually with in line with the Kingpin so as the grease goes in it fills the Kingpin and comes into our link pin Bush as well so we must make sure there's us at the bottom now I'm going to push this in with the vise to get it started a little bit grease first again make sure that that is along with our Kingpin which happens to

(16:11) be at the bottom again if you've got a press it's a lot easier to use a press but it can be done in the Vise so they are quite tight but not overly tight there we go it's starting to drive it's drive it in just make sure it's going Square before we go too far this is our new Kingpin in our new link pin bushes are in so uh we're ready to put it back on the car before we can refit our hub assembly we need to determine the offset between the lower arm and our upper arm and we do that by means of a straight edge so I'm just

(16:56) going to place the straight edge across the Flats on the lower arm and what we need to do is measure that gap between our straight edge and the upper arm and that will determine where we place our shims how many each side and we can do that by referring to the manual and that'll let us know where to place them so let's check it out let me measure it and see where we are I measured our offset as eight mil so if we look at the table in the manual eight mils here and the upper torsion arm it says here that our inner shim should be number of

(17:27) six and our outer shims should be a number of four and then we look on the lower arm says our inner shim should be a number of four and our outer shim should be six so again that's a total of ten with uh six one side for the other so we have to make sure we get these around the right way so I'm going to do the upper torsion arm first when we looked in the manual it said our upper outer had four shims so this is our upper pin on the outside we're going to put our four shim so I'm going to put these on first these are already lightly greased

(18:03) okay that goes through there like so so four on the outer and six on the inner and then on the bottom it was six on the outer and four on the inner so let's do our six of these through give me a little jiggle to get them to sit correctly not quite in there yet there we go lovely so that's sat in there nice that one sat in there nice so we need our six shims on the inner on the top and our four shims on the inner on the bottom that should give us our correct spacing as we've measures our offset so that's ready to go on the car as I

(18:44) said this is on a Porsche Speedster uh 356 is the same and these faces here where our shims push up against with our stub axle assembly these are flat as you can see these like a machined face now on the beetle there's a recess in here and that recess is for a cap and a seal so if you have the recess on the beetle the cap would fit in there and then the seal would fit within this cap I'll insert a picture so you can see what I'm talking about in the beetle I've used a ratchet strap around our damper assembly

(19:16) to pull the two arms together so we've got the correct spacing to be able to put our hub assembly back on so I'm going to go ahead and put our assembly on and get it bolted up and then we can fill it full of grease so that's the king of Link pins replaced vehicle back together and on the ground for more how-to videos visit us at justkampers.com

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