Dana 60 Kingpin Spring and Bushing Kit

The kingpin Dana 60 (common to all GM axles and early Ford and Dodge axles) uses a tapered plastic bushing and preload spring to locate the top of the steering knuckle.  As everything wears and we put big tires with lousy balance on the truck, it's common to develop what's known as "death wobble".  You typically know it if you have it, at roughly 25 mph the front tires will start a violent oscillation that typically requires you to come to a complete stop before it will go away.

One of the contributing factors in death wobble is wear on the tapered kingpin bushing and fatigue on the preload spring.  A less common problem is actual breakage of the bushing, this usually only happens with a really big hit on the front end.  The broken bushing below resulted from a 5500# truck coming down on the left front tire from a considerable height.  The wheel also bit the bullet on this one.

So, whether your damage is due to use (abuse) or simply long term wear, we have the spring and bushing kit to get the proper alignment on the upper kingpin.

Kit includes 2 springs, 2 bushings and 2 new spring cups.
Price: $24.00  Call 970-945-7777 to order

This is a photo of the kit contents:

These are photos of the busted nylon bushing, mangled spring cup and a comparison shot of the new spring vs. an old spring. Notice the old spring is about .2" shorter? That's no good.

If your bushings and springs look like theses, it's time for replacement.

Tech tips:

One trick that a lot of people are trying is shimming the kingpin spring tighter to get more preload on the bushing. Measurements indicate that adding 1/8" more preload may help out but adding more than that may get you into a coil bind situation which is very hard on parts. We've used an additional spring cup on the top of the spring to load it a little tighter and that's worked fine also. The spring cup thickness is about .060".

If you're interested in rebuilding your entire knuckle bearing and bushing assembly, we have a rebuild kit for that. click here for more info.

Replacing the kingpin bushings and springs is a relatively easy project. All you have to do is remove the tire, unbolt your steering arm or spring cap and replace the parts just as they come out. Have plenty of grease on hand, they take a LOT. Here is a photo of a spring swap in our shop. The jack is under the bottom of the knuckle keeping it pushed up into position so the new parts can be installed easily.

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