Heres a quick and easy method to set up your knuckles without the "hard to come by and use" Toyota SSM.
You will need to have some parts made to do this, a bush that fits in the seal diameter in the axle housing, and slides nicely over the dummy shaft that itself slides nicely in the spindle bush. I'll post some dimensioned pics of the parts soon.
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Here is the bush and dummy shaft in the axle housing
Now that you have the bits made
fit your bearing cups
then setup the preload as per normal, I ended up with 1.6mm of shim to give me 13lbs preload, I reakon it will go to 15 when its all torqued up
Now we know how much shim we need, but not how much goes on either side. Temporarily install the spindle onto the knuckle and slide your dummy bush into the axle housing, install the knuckle assembly onto the axle housing, but without shims.
Slide the dummy shaft through the spindle and into the dummy bush.
I use a big rack clamp to clamp the steering arm and lower bearing pin together until I get the sum of the two gaps to equal the thickness of shim I found earlier. Two pairs of feelers work ok for this.
I make sure the dummy shaft can still turn in the bushes, this ensures its all centered, my dummy shaft is too short, and I have to use pliers to grab it, so make sure its another 6 inchs or so longer
Feeler gauge the gaps to determine how much shim goes on either end, then assemble the knuckle as normal
You will need to have some parts made to do this, a bush that fits in the seal diameter in the axle housing, and slides nicely over the dummy shaft that itself slides nicely in the spindle bush. I'll post some dimensioned pics of the parts soon.
Here is the bush and dummy shaft in the axle housing
Now that you have the bits made
fit your bearing cups
then setup the preload as per normal, I ended up with 1.6mm of shim to give me 13lbs preload, I reakon it will go to 15 when its all torqued up
Now we know how much shim we need, but not how much goes on either side. Temporarily install the spindle onto the knuckle and slide your dummy bush into the axle housing, install the knuckle assembly onto the axle housing, but without shims.
Slide the dummy shaft through the spindle and into the dummy bush.
I use a big rack clamp to clamp the steering arm and lower bearing pin together until I get the sum of the two gaps to equal the thickness of shim I found earlier. Two pairs of feelers work ok for this.
I make sure the dummy shaft can still turn in the bushes, this ensures its all centered, my dummy shaft is too short, and I have to use pliers to grab it, so make sure its another 6 inchs or so longer
Feeler gauge the gaps to determine how much shim goes on either end, then assemble the knuckle as normal
