Steering Upgrade possible?
 

Any reason you couldn't put the newer front spindles from, say a 1X8/1X9 or later WF tractor on a NF's front axle? Are the king pins (axle bores?) the same size? Seems the older NF left side steering knuckle gets loose over time. The new wheel spindle assemblies seem more robust. Thoughts?

The Wf ones come with a sleeve to put in the king pins, So it will fit.

The king pins and sleeves are an inch longer on the wide frames. The sleeves I had fit loosely in the narrow frame axle I used, in that case either take the whole axle from the wide frame or get two 3/4" ID 1" long spacers.

I believe it is better to just replace the whole NF front axle, spindles and all with one from a WF tractor. If you "shim up" the spindle in the NF axle, you loose one third of the strength and "wear area".

If you do replace axle and all, and you have wide wheels, you may want to also use WF wheels as the NF wheels will set out much wider.

i've run the nf wide wheels backwards on the wf before but sometimes the valve stems are too long and hit as they go around.

OK, here's another idea. I bought a #5 taper reamer and some taper pins. Has anyone used this to replace a worn left front steering knuckle pin? The idea being you ream out the steering knuckle pin bore to a clean taper then drive in a taper pin to essentially eliminate all play at that point. I'm told the taper pin will stay in by itself, though I'm a little skeptical. Thoughts?

I took mine and drilled the hole in the drag link to 3/8 inch and then inserted a hardened 3/8 coiled pin (spirol pin). I think somewhere on these boards this is described better. The coil pins are available through mcmaster/carr. If you want you can send me a PM because I purchased a package of 5 and have 4 left over. I'd send you one gratis if you want.

here is a link to two different procedures:
http://************************.com/steering.htm
if you scroll down you will see where he talks about cutting a channel in the drag link. i'm not sure if i like this idea. then in the yellow box below this, he sells the 3/8" spirol (not spiral) pins and mentions drilling the drag link/spindle to 3/8", which is what i did.

Someone else has used the taper reamer/taper pin method and he always swore by it... Can't remember who it was though.

I would really like to try it sometime as I have several NF tractors with the loose drag link arms.

that link doesn't seem to work...