Disc Brake Conversion Kits - Drop, Stop & GO!

Next to be removed was the kingpin lock pins. These must be taken out before the kingpin can be disassembled from the axle.

GM pickup spindles from this era use a plug on each end of the kingpin to seal in grease and seal out road debris.

A trick Jim showed us to ease the removal of the kingpin plugs is to dimple them inward with a large punch.

After dimpling the kingpin plugs, they could easily be removed with a small screwdriver.

A soft metal punch works well to get the kingpins moving in the removal process. The softer brass is used because if the ends of the kingpins become "mushroomed" they are very difficult to remove.

For exceptionally stubborn original kingpins that have rusted themselves in place, a press may be required to remove them.

After removing the kingpins, note the bearing placement on the bottom side of the spindle with the thin metal shims on the top. This same combination will be repeated in the reassembly.

Once the spindles were cleaned, a special tool was used to remove the original kingpin bushings from the spindles.

The bushing removal tool pushes the bushings evenly out of the spindles.