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D60 kingpin bushing questions

JoshHefnerX

JoshHefnerX

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So I'm getting ready to rebuild a d60 to go into my truck. It was from a CUCV, so it's probably 30 years old, but with few miles.
I'm running a 4" and 35's but will be going to 37's when I swap, along w/ possibly an ez inch or something along those lines - if needed.

Not going to hammer this truck on major rocks and will be doing a bit of street driving, as it's a ways from my house to any offroad areas. Just want to build so that I don't have to fix stuff more than once - although I am not afraid of regular maintenance.

Going to do crossover steering, and don't want to buy arms more than once. I know at 37's you can start to run into problems w/ dw and I want to avoid that.

In this application, would the stock setup (nylon/spring) be appropriate?

Or, would bronze be better, and does anyone make some that don't require the tension- preload type arms?

The bronze bushing replacements I've seen state that they're meant for 'offroad only'. Is that because of some legal reasons, or because of the extra maintenance from needing to keep after the preload? Or some other reason?

How many of you have run bronze on the street for any length of time and what's your experience with them?

I've done some searching and guess I haven't found exactly what I'm looking for.

Josh
 
The stock setup is just fine. I run 40s and use the normal spring and bushing setup. The key to staying away from deathwobble is spring rate and caster. I made a thick washer for each of my kingpins springs...somewhere close to 3/16 thick and put it on top of the spring to bump the rate up. Those springs were designed for 31s but the extra spring pressure will enable you to run the larger tires without so much wobble. I believe you could just get a thick washer from home depot. Make sure your caster is at about 8 degrees leaning back...that should be the stock location of stock spring perches...
 
Also I rage on my truck pretty hard. Mostly rock crawling so I know the stock stuff holds up fine. Ive had new springs and bushings for about a year and all is well so far. Im happy if they last more than 2 years. Cheap to replace.
 
I stayed with nylon bushings but went with WFO springless arms. Check the preload when I check the wheel bearings (brakes,discs, extra weight off). Only played with it ~3 times in 3 years. Nice bonus, when I do lube the kingpins and make sure there is no water in them....... I can loosen up the preload a ton, giving me about 1/4" of play in the upper/lower kingpins. Fill them with grease and then set the preload and watch all the water/ grease some squishing out :D

Like mentioned, proper caster and tight components help fight DW. Also, hydro assist :D
 
as all mentioned above, plus a good alignment for street driving, and minimum 30# tire pressure will help some as well.
 
as all mentioned above, plus a good alignment for street driving, and minimum 30# tire pressure will help some as well.
 
as all mentioned above, plus a good alignment for street driving, and minimum 30# tire pressure will help some as well.
 
many years with lots of dana 60's my self and others . just get new bushings / springs / little centering washer for spring / gasket for arm/cover to upper knuckle .

but if king pin is groved / pitted should be replaced . but that can be a can of worms if you not set up to do them .

I use to run 38" bias swampers and was good with oem bushings and new springs .

and almost all aftermarket products seem to be doing the off road use only to skirt laws and rules .

I got a guy running bronze bushings in his with crane offroad urethane spring eliminator kit with crossover and 46" m/t claws . drives real nice 60mph .

and check venture truck parts on ebay or if you got part #'s rock auto . I just saved almost 300 bucks last few orders there for my 60 parts . name brand stuff also .
 
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I appreciate all your responses. Sounds like dw shouldn't be a big problem as long as my parts are in good condition and caster is right.

Wetolow, 3/16 spacer on top of the spring? Is that pretty close to binding up the spring?

Josh
 
Nope. Id say the spring probably doesnt bottom out until about half inch. I looked up what I had and its actually .16", I think an eighth is fine...
 
lots of guys do fender washer .

or you can just order 2 extra centering washers for the spring . . . or reuse your old on top . this will shim it up a bit .

but I have not had to shim any of my king pins yet . even the urethane eliminator kit from crane . I put 1 in each side to start and it was way to tight . so I went no shims .
 
I run the bronze bushings on two of my rigs. My trail rig has 40s and springless WFO arms. My crew cab has new OEM springs and Sky crossover on it with wide 33s. I don't know if the bronze bushings are any better on a street duty rig, but they were on sale so I bought two sets. I really like them with the springless setup on my trail rig, but mainly because it sees a lot more abuse.
 
JoshHefnerX said:
So you can run bronze w/ the factory spring w/o any ill effects?
Click to expand...

Yeah I didn't see anything about springless arms being required when I bought them. I don't put a lot of miles on that particular vehicle, but it drives great.
 
I'm running ORD high steer arms and I started out with the Crane poly bushings and Reid bronze bushings. For me this made the steering too tight. I swapped out the Crane urethane spring replacements for the 3 year old factory type springs I had previously and the steering is much better.

Did some reading and it's not unusual for the bronze bushings to be tighter but they do wear in some and loosen up. Some people running the bronze bushings with Crane urethane spring eliminators have milled down the urethane bushings to reduce the pre-load. Some people had trouble with the springless arms being too tight and not even leaving any set screw adjustment with the bronze bushings. Many of the people that had no adjustment in the set screw found that after some driving there was room to adjust the pre-load. I found a post from Artec mentioning they had changed their arms a little to accommodate the difference with the bronze bushings.

My guess is the bronze bushings are listed as "offroad only" to eliminate some general liability issues. But it could also be because they do seem to make the steering a little tighter.

My preference would be springless arms and bronze bushings. I would likely look at Artec's arms since the specifically mention addressing the difference with the bronze bushings.

However I also think you'd probably me just fine with new stock parts. It does depend on your driving style. I've done lots of trails with the factory nylon bushing in both spring type and springless arms without ever breaking the nylon bushing. Yet there are people that have broken them.
 
I will also add that if my truck had been a trailer queen, I don't think I'd have ever noticed the steering was too tight. It was only driving at highway speeds that I could really tell the difference.
 
Sounds like I will get the crossover w/ the standard type arms and factory bushing/spring. If I do run into any problems I can still swap in bronze and spring replacement without buying new arms.
 
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