Great video! Thanks for posting it. Three comments. First comment. I found this out the hard way. Not sure if Andrew mentioned this, but the king pin has two holes for the cotter pin that are at 90 degrees to each other; one through the slot for the tab washer and another one at 90 degrees. This is very important because once the correct torque has been established it is possible one of the the merlons of the castle nut could be blocking one of the holes. By design if one hole is completely blocked the other will be completely open. This allows for minimal tweaks to the "over-torque" should a hole not line up with the crenels of the castle nut. If this is a rebuild there is a good chance the holes will be filled with grease, so poke about with a pipe cleaner. Second comment. Once the bearings are packed with grease, and assuming the swivel arm is on the car, it will be tricky sliding the shims and outer bearing into place. The whole hub will become a sticky mess. It is possible to drop a shim beside the spacer, and it may be hard to see, find and fish out. After several machinations of trying to slide these things in and out (as Andrew said, getting the right number of shims is trial and error) I found if I laid a length of clean, smooth, ridge wire into the slot of the king pin I could use it as a guide and slide the shims and bearing down the wire and on to the king pin. Third comment. Keep count of the number of shims you are using. Because of the trial and error process of finding the right shim thickness you will have to repeat the exercise several times (most likely). There is the possibility of losing a shim beside the spacer. So as you experiment with the right number of shims of various sizes record the number of shims used. For example, if four go in and you need to repeat the process you have to be able to account of the four. Some shims will be stuck to the spacer and some will be stuck to the bearing. Like the two holes in the king pin, I learned this the hard way. It was only by dumb luck that while crawling around on my shoulder, reenacting elements of my basic training, I saw the glint of a shim disappearing beside the spacer. Andrew, thanks for the video.

Great informative video, I’ve found it after installing my bushes, however I used a press. I however missed the honing step, I’m assuming this is why my kingpin does not appear to fit…

Great informative video, I’ve found it after installing my bushes, however I used a press. I however missed the honing step, I’m assuming this is why my kingpin does not appear to fit…

Nice vidéo ! Do you know the torque for the top trunion nut ? I need for my front hub refurbishing... Tanks a lot . Christian

Morning Andy. Age old tech question for you. I have some play in my front offside wheel. Slight up/down knocking if I pull the wheel at 12:00/6:00 o’clock. If I measure the end float though it’s around 4 thou. My main question is, if I’m reshimming and the castle nut is a long way from lining up with the hole, do you back off below 40 ft/lb or tighten beyond 70 ft/lb??? My understanding is the torque creates strength in the assembly but overtorquing will clearly damage the bearings. Dave.

If you loosen the nut & put the brake drum on backwards , you can tap it off the shaft. I hope that helps.

Thank you. I’ve got to mine (1974 MGB) I needed some info.

I got as far as pushing out the pinion axle a 3/4" but it wont pull out any more. You used a screw driver through the roll pin hole, I may have to concoct a slide hammer attachment for that!

Thank you very much for this video. There is not much in print that tells you how to extract the kingpin.

Brilliant video, many thanks...

Nice vid. I watched the other one too. Those look like the same bearings I ordered for my MGB ('72) Roadster. I will be changing my right-front hub in the near future. I'm reusing, or hoping to reuse, my old collar and castle nut. I have a used, but great condition, hub coming to me by this Friday. The reason I have to change this hub is the splines are flat and the wheel slips. This is an unsafe situation so make sure your splines are good in the wheel and on the hub. Thnx for the helpful vid 😊

This is awesome. Everybody on the forums just wants you buy a new one for $250 bucks. If I had that kind of money I'd buy a Porsche not an MG!

Excellent, does your Dad do similar on Land Rovers?

MORE OF THIS PLEASE!

The easiest way is to build the hub with a pack of shims which will give a large end float - measure and then reduce the shims to give the correct clearance - a lot quicker

Thank you, Great job. This video was very helpfull.

Great video. After watching I decided my bushings are good enough. That's too much trouble for what I'm going for right now. I should note, however, the grooves on the inside of mine are an intricate pattern that haven't seen here or on other videos. It's also different from the replacement that came with the rebuild kit.

I watched another video where the entire assembly was fresh and clean like it was straight from the factory. Mine looks more like yours. I very much appreciate seeing how to deal with one covered in years of gunk. This video is exactly what I needed.

On the shims and bronze thrust washer goes in this order.Stub axle, two shims, bronze thrust washer then the trunnion. Got this from Moss Motors. I saw this yesterday in another video.

Great video, a job I’ve been putting off but time to do!

sorry meant 2 thou

might find if you torque up too tight and 70 ft lbs is miles too much the wheel will not rotate, with this typ of bearing there has to be 10 thou slack to allow the bearing to expand as it will at speed

I'll have to do this in a few weeks and this was immensly helpful! Thank you Andrew

Instead of a mini hacksaw, if you have a jigsaw w a metal blade, a whole lot easier, take your time.

Excellent tutorial. Thank you.

Thanks

really helpful! i appreciate you showing the mistakes too, hopefully stop me making them too :)

Good addition to mikeaonyoutube's video. Thanks!

Gday Andrew, I greatly enjoyed watching this. I do have a question, can you describe the symptoms of a worn or failing stub axle. Are there clunking sounds? Cheers Aaron G

Yes the third hand is called a vice

How different is an MGA assembly? I assume it's quite similar but I haven't had the guts to attempted it myself.

Think I will use my 12 v impact wrench to set in the bushing. A whole lot quicker, simpler🥴😬😊

Where putting them back in?

Excellent tutorial, thanks Andrew. I'm going to replace the hubs and bearings on a '67 Austin Healey (which specifies zero float) but the basics are the same. This was most helpful.

excellent video. thanks to your video i did the job on my MGB.

Excellent video. Thank you for the effort that went into this.

Outstanding video. Thanks from California USA.

Being an MG BGT owner for the last 20 years, I've always wanted to refurbish my own units. Thanks to this video I now can!

The Bronze bushes have to be Pressed in or Bashed in this can cause a slight distortion in the inner surface this is why they need to be Reamed . There are Fixed size and Adjustable ones .

Tell the public the price for a reamer , you will be shocked.

Great video, was worried about doing by myself but your video was very clear and easy to follow with great narrating! Your efforts are keeping a 73 MGB GT and 73 roaster going strong on Long Island, NY!

I think it would be wise to buy a set of proper drifts

Excellent video. Very informative, well explained More please.

Enjoying your vids! Question, if the bushing is the right size, why do you need to ream it?

Cobra makes happy ! 😊

Very helpful video - thx!

Very useful video, did mine today after studying your vid a few times.

Next time it will be OK ;-)

You're quite right about the castle nut. The original kingpins did use castle nuts but the newer replacement ones all seem to use nyloc nuts. Interestingly the thread is a good 1/4" longer on the new ones as well. BTW nice vid. I'm currently doing a full rebuild of the front suspension in my GT (as well as a V8 conversion) and like a twit I forgot to document the teardown (that I did about 6 months ago) so this was a pretty helpful reminder.