Brass kin pin bushings

[ken]

While reading another thread about death wobble i came across a discussion about using brass king pin bushings instead of the nylon ones. Has anyone used these yet? How did they work out? It is started they are for racing only. Not street use. Anyone know why?

 

[84cucv1ton]

I was wondering about this myself.

 

[Autocar]

These need to be shimmed for proper pre-load and checked regularly. Nylon uses spring loading to set pre-load and never need to be be re-adjusted. Designed specially for extreme duty off road racing. Most of the King of the Hammers racers use them.

 

[ken]

Oh wow i must have been mistaken. I was under the impression the brass used the same spring as the nylon. I thought you just swapped them out for the brass?

 

[Autocar]

Nope, need to get spring elimator kit. Two different styles, one uses a stack of shims, the other uses an adjustment bolt to push down on a plate that pushes down on the bushing. Either is easy to install and not too expensive. Most hard core off road places sell the bronze bushings and the spring eliminators.

 

[Iceman3005]

so the reason for not using brass is they are not self adjusting? for daily use they would need to be adjusted often???? Just curious, I thought about this myself when I got my king pin rebuild kit, "why didn't they use brass", you would think brass would be better than plastic?

 

[ODdave]

The nylon dosnt wear very much at all if it is greased like it should be. The brass ones can stand a harder impact load without cracking, That is why they are used in racing. Not worth the $ at all for one road / light wheeling.

 

[Iceman3005]

It just seems like the load of the spring on the nylon, the weight of the vehicle, and torque applied on it from the tire, it wouldn't hold up very long, or is the grease actually doing most of the work? I think some of my death wobble was caused by the nylon bushing being broken on mine, along with many other factors.

 

[kassim503]

After reading up on it, it sounds like a great idea but only if you are willing to maintain the unit after a rebuild. Im keeping this one in mind twenty years from now when the truck starts sha-shakin again

 

[Autocar]

If you do severe off-road or go to big tires, the nylon bushing becomes the weak link in the kingpin front end. You either break up the nylon or the wheel loading pushes the spring up and lets the top of the knuckle move sideways because the nylon bushing is riding up the cone