Ford 4200 wide front

[Josh M.]

Anybody know the bushing sizes for the spindles, and
spindle size too, looking to rebuild this front end. King pin
is shot too if anyone knows what the specs are for these
axles please let me know. Shes on her 3rd motor and Id
love to get 3 more out of her. Grandpa bought her brand
new in 66 so itll never leave. If anyone has a spare wide
front in decent shape laying around or even a whole parts
tractor id be interested in that too.

 

[Old Ford Mechanic]

Rode that pony many times. You can purchase a king pin repair kit from this very site if you wish. After purchasing the new bushings that will come with the kit then, remove the kingpins from the tractor. Take the new bushings along with king pins to a machine shop. They can measure everything and weld up and resize the pins to fit correctly through the bushings. They can also make you a bushing driver to install the bushings From your pic i can see that the king pins have worn through the top bushings. You can be assured that the pins will be worn to the point of needing repair. You can drive the old bushings out of the knee's with a long sharp bar. I completely remove the knee to do all this. A service manual will be very helpful if you have never attempted this repair before.

 

[Old Ford Mechanic]

Sorry i should clarify that what i called king pins are actually the right and left hand spindles. Also i have always had access to a good shop to do the machine work i specified. You may not have that luxury. In that case you may need to price out new spindles.

 

[Josh M.]

Yeah I figured Id probably have to send the spindles and knees out to be rewelded. I completely rebuilt my 8000s front end and the spindles were shot on that, it wasnt even close to being as worn out as this one too. Not many fords in my area let alone the early oddball 42/5200 tractors, Ive only ever seen one other one in person so front ends are impossible to come across. Im going to keep an eye out though because I think Ill have more money in the front end than what its worth.

 

[Check Break]

(quoted from post at 20:01:58 07/17/23) Yeah I figured Id probably have to send the spindles and knees out to be rewelded. I completely rebuilt my 8000s front end and the spindles were shot on that, it wasnt even close to being as worn out as this one too. Not many fords in my area let alone the early oddball 42/5200 tractors, Ive only ever seen one other one in person so front ends are impossible to come across. Im going to keep an eye out though because I think Ill have more money in the front end than what its worth.

Here's a link to a few wrecked ones. There's more out there if you look around. https://www.tractorhouse.com/listings/dismantled-machines/ford/4200/farm-equipment

 

[Ultradog MN]

Where are you located Josh?
I'm in the Twin Cities and could do most, if not all, of the welding/ machine work for you here.

 

[Josh M.]

Thats a little far unfortunately, Im in northeast ohio.

 

[Ultradog MN]

Yeah,
Another case of everything a guy wants is on the other side of the country.
Same situation here.

 

[Bern]

Take it apart and see what you have to work with before you start making plans for new spindles and/or welding. My experience has been that the bushings wear much faster than the spindles. Even if the spindles are worn a little, I would not hesitate to reuse them because it's not like you're going to be driving this tractor at freeway speeds.

I worked on a 7000 last summer where the gap looked far worse than what you have going on there. It had worn completely through the bushing and even ate into the axle housing a bit. Some JB Weld and new bushings were all I put back in for the repair.