This task is completed for Dan, but just as a tip for anyone tackling this somewhere in the future I’ve got a few comments.
Heating up the stud is going in the wrong direction, you need to shrink the stud, not expand it. The stud is set much like the rivets that were used in structural steel only these were done cold. Swaging the buck-tail does two things, one it expands the shank to completely fill the hole and two it forms a shop-head on the buck-tail. So drilling the center relives the outward pressure of the cylindrical shank. The shop-head is driven into a very large counter sunk in the arm so just drilling the center still leaves a ‘head’ on the shank which will make it very difficult to driver it out.
After the center is drilled out, if you use a large counter sink, (1”) to relieve the head the ball can be driven out quite easily.
A word of caution is also due here: Heating a forged steering component is a very dangerous practice. Steering knuckles and arms gain their strength from the forging process. Heating a forged part will anneal it rendering them much softer/weaker than the originally design criteria.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
Last edited by Denny Graham; 10/26/2010 11:43 AM.
