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It was pretty cool to see him angle grinding his own Stage 4 reissue kingpins down, but those things were long.
Prior to that he had posted a set of Stage 11 standard baseplates that someone else had machined down the kingpins on to look very professional.
Someone took a screen shot of it and posted it here, but I can't find it right this minute.
Gotta say though that I enjoy most kingpins a little bit shorter too, especially the back one, but taking one or two threads down is pretty common and works a charm for me, as well as some others I know.
does this end up shortening the height of the hanger, and brining the effective wb in?
Only if the bottom bushing sits lower (machined the surface where bottom bushing touches baseplate). If you mean that only the kingpin was machined shorter, the geometry shouldn’t change, only increased kingpin clearance (and probably tighter trucks). I haven’t seen that picture myself, if someone has it, please post it as i’m pretty interested
I do the same to my kingpins a lot, so no changes to the geometry of the truck as the stock bushings (or my aftermarket low head bushings) still sit at the normal height, then the tops are as usual with the nut just sitting down lower and not having any threads showing.
On stock / untouched trucks, I would often have one thread or so showing on the back truck with normal bushings, or about three threads showing with the low head bushings, same as the Venture loose kit - just the same bottom bushings, lower head top bushing.
When I see some people with more than half a thread showing on the kingpin, I instantly want to reach for the grinder, but thankfully I am not that crazy about it.
Quite often I have shown people what I do to mine and some then do it themselves, with others asking if I can take the top of their kingpin off, which I can do easily enough.
Definitely not mandatory, but it does help with clearance when a little more is needed, especially on the back truck for me.
* I have even done it with regular baseplates when trying the Indy mid hangers, which work a treat too - no more inverted kingpin issues and still giving enough clearance for the trucks to function as they should, for the people who wanted that as an option.