Quick note before I go work on the car in the living room

And yes there is a car in the living room but that’s not what I’m going to work on. I’m going to install the bushings in the spindles and hone them to fit the kingpins. But first I have a needy cat on my lap who wants belly rubs so brief break.

OK belly rub needs satisfied, back to the blog post.

The concept is simple, the kit ships with bronze bushings that press into the spindles and have to be fitted to the kingpins, similar to how the axle bosses had to be fitted so the kingpins would go in and out of the axle. The difference here is the kingpins are locked into the axle with the grub screw while the bushings have to be honed for working clearance, the size difference is only a few thousandths of an inch (0.03-0.06 mm). There just needs to be enough room for a layer of heavy grease in the bushings where the axle bosses didn’t need any room at all.

Enough words time for work.

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My sleep got messed up and I faceplanted into the keyboard 3 times trying to write this headline

Usually I sleep pretty soundly, but something was making noises like someone trying to break into the house shortly after sunrise this morning and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I spent most of the day running around taking care of banking, buying cat food, and paying the phone bill. With temperatures in the mid-90s and “feels like” temps in the low 100s I was dehydrated again, and between dehydration and exhaustion I have been bouncing my face off the keyboard. I’m going to take a nap and come back to finish the post.

OK it’s 4 hours later and I’m feeling better, not great but better.

As you might imagine I got no work done on any projects what with all the time spent running around. That’s OK I can’t do everything. I did find some information about lightweight OE replacement spindles that I could use for an IFS. There’s the MII/Pinto spindle that comes in at 17.8 pounds per pair or 8.9 each, and there is a forged aluminum ’60s GM F-body spindle that weighs “half of stock”. And there is also the late ’60s VW balljoint spindle that is also slightly lighter than the MII/Pinto spindle, but is tricky to find outside of eBay and even trickier to find big brake kits for. The biggest brakes I have found for this spindle top out at 11″ diameter. Another lightweight candidate is the Wilwood MII modular replacement spindle at 9 pounds each but massively strong and the steering arms can be replaced for more lock/quicker steering/bump steer correction.

And now I’m hot and sleepy again, so let’s end this and park my butt in front of some AC and get more sleep.