The parts I needed to keep working on the rear upper control arms did not show up in time for the weekend so I moved to the front of the car to work on the front upper control arms.
Things were going well, I got everything into position on the car with the plan of mocking up one control arm using my knuckle jig and then tacking it together before moving to the bench and creating another jig to hold it in place before fully welding and to make the other side.
My problem is the tube I am using is a little larger than the height of the spherical bearing housing. My plan was to heat the tube with my TIG torch and then squish it in the vice to bring the diameter down to the size I need. I have seen other aftermarket arms where they have done this where the tube meets the bearing.
Well it didn't go so well, the first problem was that it was hard to prevent the TIG from melting the tube but at least I know it was hot enough, I was only testing on scrap so I pushed on.
Once I started turning the vice it seemed to work but it was slow and I think the metal may have cooled too much as it became difficult to turn and then the vice handle bent.
You can see I got the size down a little but the tube looks nasty and I still need it a little smaller than that.
I need to come up with a better method, I'm open to ideas? maybe a hydraulic press is needed to increase the squeeze speed.