Kingpins

King Pin
Early 53 Had one partnumber.
Late 53 and 54 - 61 Had another partnumber. 61:s
61 - 66 Had another partnumber.... Whats the difference?

Don't know about the 53, but late 61 on pins had about 4 degrees more positive
caster, which supposedly make any car "track" better.

I have heard that "old" and "new" style kingpins interchange fine, as
long as you don't mix and match on the same car.  So apparently they're
not all that different.  I haven't heard of the differences with hte
early '53 kingpin either, so I'm no help there.

Nate, 
You're right about the interchangability.  I've been there/done that, and
couldn't tell the difference after replacing an earlier style with a later
style.  Just more caster showing on the scale.



 Even if you get different kpi versions of the pin,
you should be able to adjust both sides up almost equally, and caster is
not a tire wearing angle. 

The king pin angle of inclination was changed in '61 and the knuckle
(spindle) was also changed. As long as the king pin and its knuckle are kept
together, they are interchangeable as a unit but if the late king pin is
used with the early knuckle or vice versa you wind up with some interesting
camber angles.
 John

What, specifically, is different between the spindles ?
  If it's camber angle, and different in that it would INCREASE positive
camber, that would be a good thing for many V8s Studes.  Many run out of camber
adjustment limits before reaching proper camber.
  Stude tried to fix this when they introduced the offset inner pin in the
upper 'A' arm in the early 60s.  The offset provides an extra 1/8" adjustment
in either direction, depending which way you install  it.   

Early 53, I think is the same as 50-52 but I may be wrong on that. The
difference between early 53 and late 53 is:
early 53 the "spindle" boss is machined lower on the king pin, i.e., the
front end sits higher, later king pin "spindle" boss is machined lower on
the king pin, which will lower the front end about 1/2"
 I ran into this on my 52 when I installed my disc brake kit on it, Champion
king pins are smaller diameter than Commander king pins, I found a bushing
to use so the later V-8 spindles will work on the smaller Champ king pins,
(makes my disc brake kit bolt on too!)

So, if anybody wants "dropped spindles" on their 50-early 53, get later
spindles and you'll drop about 1/2"