I have a Case 580 C that needs a king pin but I've been putting it off because I know it's going to be a real bit**. The manual says to drive it out from below to prevent damage to the seal. Anyone have any advice - besides turning the machine upside down - I already thought of that one.
Finally found a relevant thread in search. There were 16 pages so it took a while. Is there any way to narrow down search criteria? I typed in Case 580C king pins and then again with kingpin as one word but it didn't help.
Set the pin on a pointed chisel with stand and lower the machine?
small bottle jack and push it out
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Remove steering and tie rod end from arm. Place jack stand or block under axle with clearance to remove tire. remove center dust cap, cotter pin, nut and washer. Remove wheel and hub from spindle. Remove the two snap rings upper and lower along with retainer and grease fitting. Remove wedge bolt and nut and drive king pin down and out. If your king pin is bad, so is the upper and lower needle bearings and main bearing. Order the kit to do one side. If the bore for the needle bearing is trashed you may have to have it line bored or weld a new end yoke on the axle. You will need a driver to install the new needle bearings also. It is not uncommon to have to heat the spindle area where the king pin goes threw or cut the king pin bearing out and slice the kingpin/ and remove that part to a press to push it out. It may fall out with a few hits with a driver and sledge but more than likely you will need some heat. Would not waste a lot of time trying to save those parts. The seals allow grease to be purged out when greasing to help to keep the needle bearings clean.
Buy the whole kit for one side, you will need everything. Remove wheel, locking pin, and tie rod end, cut pin through thrust bearing and pin with 7" grinder wedge spindle up cut pin below spindle. Try not to grind spindle or axle ends. Remove spindle drill kingpin near outer edge with drill press and blow hole out with torch this should give pin a little room to move. Now you can pound or press out. Much easier on bench than trying to do it on the machine. If you don't have a torch you can take that piece to someone who does beating on it too much mushrooms the pin and wedges it in there. Pieces left in axle should pound out no problem. Assembly is the easy part. After hours of heating and pounding and jacking and cursing and swearing this is what worked for me.
Thanks for all the advice. I cut through the pin on the top and bottom of the spindle with a large grinding wheel - tons of fun. The top and bottom pieces fell out because the bearings had been consumed long ago. I took the spindle to a local machine shop where a hundred ton press had to grunt to press it out. The bore through the spindle is fine but the bore in the top and bottom where the bearings go is not. The top has the slight remnants of the bearing race still still stuck to the walls of the bore. It's like it is welded or forged there from the pressure of the pin thrashing around in there. The snap ring groove looks like it has been worn away from the pin slop in the bore after the needle bearing's demise or maybe the groove is just filled in with bearing residue under the pressure of the king pin? The pin isn't supposed to reach the height of the snap ring groove but the thrust bearing on top of the spindle was also missing so that let the pin rise higher in the top bore. I've tried beating the bearing residue out with a small sledge and chisel with little success. It's like weld. I thought the top bore was elongated from the pin slop but it still looks pretty round in the pics - maybe just an illusion but even if it's worn up high, as long as where the bearing sits is good it should be OK. The bottom bore is another story. I guess I can try to set up a boring bar and restore the top bore to specs because it's still tight [if all goes well] but the bottom is going to need a sleeve or some weld in the worn area. The needle bearings are about an inch wide so only that much of the bores would need to be reworked. A new replacement end to weld on the axle is about $500.00 - probably could get a good used front axle for that or spend that much dicking around trying to rework this one. The other side is fine. Any thoughts?
The top bore with the round retainer looks to be fairly round but the bottom bore with the bearing sitting there shows the wear.
I bought a small grinding wheel to re-do the snap ring groove on the top bore as there seems to be enough material and maybe some heat will help with the race remnants but the bottom bore needs real help.
The bore in the top of my axle was worn not quite as bad as your bottom because someone put the thrust bearing on the bottom instead of the top. I cleaned it up filled it full of JB Weld set the needle bearings in reassembled and left it overnight before putting weight on it. I have not jacked it up since to check for play or see if the jb weld is still intact. It steers much easier having thrust bearing in right place. It was too far out of round for snap ring to stay in place, it would fly out when greasing it, so I put 3 small tack welds to hold spacer with grease fitting in place.
Andy, Having that thrust bearing on the bottom pushes the spindle right up against the top eye just like mine was with no bearing. I'm glad yours wasn't worn as bad as this one. I can't complain too much about the repairs because I got a pretty good deal. The previous owner had passed away and wasn't up to doing much maintenance or repairs the last few years. Even with no bearings at all, it still steered remarkably well at the low speeds I operate it at. I'm thinking about welding up the worn area and grinding it as close as possible by hand either oversize and then machining it down or undersize and going your route. It's not the main crank bearings but I plan on keeping it so I only want to fix it once. I'm thinking about a DIY portable boring set-up because I have other worn bushings, etc. on old machines. If anyone has any suggestions or advice in that [or any] area, I'm interested. The axle eye looks to be cast but I'm guessing it's not the ductile that you can't weld on like the newer hoes. If I heat it up a little first, I should get a weld I can still grind or machine - right?
Mine float up and down a bit, I imagine it'd be a weld and re-bore
I'm looking for an affordable DIY portable boring set up. Lots of videos on you tube - if I only had a machine shop.
Why not take the axle off and bring it in to a machine shop? That should be cheaper than line boring, either DIY or proffessionally.
for the use mine gets, I was also thinking of just brazing it up and file/flap wheel it into submission.
Delmer, that's an option but I have other uses for a portable boring set up on my other junk. I did consider it though - not that much more to disconnect. I have my truck torn apart now, too - rear axle seals and brakes. I was going to talk to the machine shop about the boring set up so I'll bring my pics and see what they think and how much. Thanks.
fast, I hear you and that's a good idea. I'm thinking about seeing how close I can get it by eye with some weld and a die grinder and since that brazing rod is softer, I could finish up with that since it's easier to work by hand than the weld. Trucks have bronze king pin bushings and some are even plastic or nylon or something now. Maybe a 100 grit hone - will the brazing rod clog up the stones? The C isn't at home - not that it really matters since I have no garage there either so it's an outside fix either way but my torches and welder are there so it's do-able.
If it comes down to it, putting a soft steel bushing in there will work fine for the hours that these old machines will run. I know that will work. Just a matter of how many hours and grease till it's wallowed out again. That's what I would have done if I didn't have the bearings already. Putting that needle bearing on top of free hand welded and ground support sounds a little iffy to me.
Yeah, It's definitely not optimum but I've already got the new bearings. I'm hoping I can put together a DIY boring set up because i need it for other problems I've got. I got a quote of 2 grand from one guy to rebore the center pivot on my old dozer. That isn't going to happen. This would be a good warm up project.
I'd still have to clean up that top bore to get any kind of bushing in there. Might as well go for the whole shooting match. The bottom of the top eye is a little buggered from the spindle rubbing on it with no thrust bearing so it would be nice to flatten that out as well before putting it all back together. There are plenty of other things to fix on this and other wrecks. The only question is will i live long enough to have to fix any of these things twice?
I guess that will depend on the quality of the repair but until I'm a little further down that path, I can't see it getting to this level of screwed up again with all the bearings missing and the bores trashed. A little grease probably doesn't hurt. Thanks to all for the input. I'll post more when I decide which method I'm going to go with.
I found a good deal on a Milwaukee magnetic drill press on craigslist. I'm going to try and use it to power a DIY line boring set up. I need to do the blade pivot on my dozer [as well as some other worn bushings] but that is a vertical bore and more straight forward. This king pin bore is canted so that should keep things interesting. If anyone has any ideas, I'm interested. I'm not looking to do it professionally but I'd like it to be as accurate as possible. I have a nice variable speed drill press for steel - or any metal - if the boring rig doesn't work out.