Since publication of Eric Worpe’s article in the previous issue of TTT 2 there have been a couple of comments as follows:
Peter Bick had a similar problem with a Jaguar with oval eyes and was told that braking causes the kingpin to rock forwards and backwards, inflicting more wear in the axle eye. When the cars were in production, Jaguar listed a .008” oversize kingpin, but now of course, these are generally unavailable.
However, he managed to find a NOS (new old stock) pair of kingpins, which he had hard chromed and then ground 0.10 inches oversize to fit the reamed axle eyes to suit.
While hard chroming the kingpin he also had a hole drilled and tapped at the top of it to take a 5/8 inch blot. A swaged wire strop was attached with an adjustable turnbuckle back to a bracket on the chassis so that now every time the brakes are applied this strop should stop the kingpin from moving forward.
From recent experience, Jeff Townsend confirms all of Eric Worpe’s findings relating to the sale of undersized kingpins in the UK. He says that while Eric was fitting new spindles to the stub axles of TA1957 he asked him if he could fit new kingpins and bushes at the same time. Having purchased a set from one of the trade suppliers, Eric found that the pins were up to 0.5 thou undersized. Further investigation indicated that pins from other suppliers might be the same.
It was indeed fortunate that Eric got to hear that Gerry Brown was having some 2 thou oversize pins made. Whilst the TA axle had been straightened and steering geometry reset as far as possible, the eyes were found to be slightly oversized. The oversized pins are now a good fit in the eyes.
Eric also fitted some original ‘wrapped’ (bi-metal) bushes, so the car is well engineered around the front hub area. In fairness to the undersized pins supplier, a no quibble full refund was offered and accepted.
Ed’s note: Eric is expecting delivery of the wrapped (bi-metal) bushes by the end of September. Price will be very competitive.