Figured I would post this for anyone looking into buying them.
Purchased from Summit on Thursday, arrived Friday. Sweet right?
Immediately noticed the tie rods need to be inserted in the spindles upside down. No biggie.
Went to test fit it on my ‘65 c30 1 ton, and noticed the tie rod taper was considerably smaller than my original drum brake c30 tie rod end. I’ve never seen a c10/20/c30 drum brake tie rod end that’s bigger than a later model 73+ tie rod end.
Ok, must be a fluke?
Luckily we just rebuilt the front end of my brothers ‘82 c30 3+3 Cummins swapped truck and he still had all the old parts. Ran over to his house and picked up a tie rod end to verify my theory.
Same issue. Taper in the new drop spindles is considerably smaller than his stock square body c30 tie rod end (c10/20/30 squares all use the same tie rods anyway). The smallest portion of the taper isn’t even big enough to fit the tie rod through (ie, it won’t even stick out the other side to be able to put a nut on it).
I’m no stranger to this, I had the same issue with a set of McGaughy drop spindles a few years ago (left a review on here as well) where they sold me a 71-72 drop spindle tapered for non disc pre 70. They refused to accept responsibility and/or do anything about it so I just took the reamer to them.
Called Western Chassis, emailed them pictures, measurements and even a 2 minute video. No response all day after they gave me the wrong email address and said they would call me back. And no answer when I called to ask about it.
I’ve built dozens of these trucks and this is the 2nd time I’ve run into the exact same situation now with 2 different manufacturers (who knows they’re probably all made in the same Chinese plant).
At this point It looks like I either have to take the ream to them or send them back. Thank god I bought from Summit this time and they’ve already agreed to return them for free and even pay for the shipping back.
Anyone have any experience with other 3” drop spindles that actually fit?
Little quick video I made of the issue:
https://youtu.be/937uPGV-UgE