kingpin symptoms

[jtate]

ever since ive owned my truck the steering hasnt been up to par. ive changed the gearbox and the steering shaft, and its alot better but not as tight as i'd like it. when i fist purchased the truck i jacked the front end up and checked for p[lay in the kingpins but found nothing. after a year of driving it, i noticed it now has slack in the kingpins. what would be the symptoms of bad kingpins while you were driving? trying to also pinpoint a rattle in the front end as well.

 

[Michael Fowler]

They can fail two different ways--either too loose or too tight.
Mine were too tight. Symptoms were failure to self -center after a turn. I had to physically steer the truck back to a straight line, otherwise it would stay in the turn permanently.
Disconnect the tie rods and with the wheels off the ground check for
stiff or loose condition

 

[jtate]

yes ive already done that and they were loose. its like when your driving down a road and it has lots of bumps the front end wanders from side to side. ive checked all the rod ends and none of them have any play. would the kingpins cause this problem?

 

[Dirtleg]

I have balljoints not kingpins but I have recently replaced them all and the truck wanders worse than before. Apparently the worn ones had settled in a straight line. In my case it's the leaf spring bushings and track bar bushings. If you know your kingpins are bad fix them and then see what your issues are. I didn't check to see if you were 2 or 4 wheel drive (oops) but either way it'll be hard to diagnose exactly what all else is wrong if the kingpins are bad.

 

[BigRigTech]

I had badly worn upper kingpin bushings on my D60, I bought some new bushings for $10 on ebay and it tightened my front end right up.