anyone know of a shop or a way to replace your ball joints with rivets

they wont use rivets
bolts are whats used in replacement balljoints

surely there is someone out there doing restos that are replacing ball joints and riveting them in,

The reproduction control arms use riveted ball joints.

I did my own.
I believe Heartbeat City has a shop that will do them if you feel comfortable shipping them.

Lane

Thanks, I will look into both options, how are the repos

http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB10&Number=174017&Searchpage=1&Main=173929&Words=rivets&topic=&Search=true#Post174017

And

http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB10&Number=94841&Searchpage=1&Main=94611&Words=rivets&topic=&Search=true#Post94841

I don't know what they charge to rivet them but this is what I would do. Go to your local airport and find an airframe mechanic to do the job or go to or find someone in the military (air base near you?) to do it.

Installing them is very easy and will not take long. You could also look in your phone book for companies in your area that do some sort of aircraft assembly work or sub assembly manufacturing.

I think your best bet is the local Airport.

Joe

Thanks

Heck, an old-fashioned BLACKSMITH that sharpen's sickle-bars can do it in a heartbeat!!

AND my old Blacksmith Buddy taught me back in highschool how so I can too!!

Back about '63 or so!!

pdq67

Yes Blacksmith or Tractor Repair. some tractors used rivets on the brake shoes, also 50's Ford Tractors had rivets on the ring gears!

There was an article in a Corvette Restorer magazine like last month that showed you how to do it.

In steel buildings they used hot rivets, when the rivets cool they shrink and that makes them hold very tight. I know you can just hammer them down and buck them with another hammer or piece of steel, but it may not hold tight enough.

Inline Tube has bolts with heads that look like rivets!
http://www.inlinetube.com/new_products.htm

If I was anal about this I would use a round-head rivet set/punch, but I'm not!!

Use a 3-pound FT and maybe a 1/4" punch and a good stiff/hard backup and pein away hard!! CAREFULLY!!

You will see what I mean, it's easy!!

Bolt the sucker together and be done w/ it unless you wanna Concours her...............

pdq67

I don't know what they charge to rivet them but this is what I would do. Go to your local airport and find an airframe mechanic to do the job or go to or find someone in the military (air base near you?) to do it.

Installing them is very easy and will not take long. You could also look in your phone book for companies in your area that do some sort of aircraft assembly work or sub assembly manufacturing.

I think your best bet is the local Airport.

Joe

yes, an airframe mechanic can doit!!!!

where are you located?

If I was anal about this I would use a round-head rivet set/punch, but I'm not!!

Use a 3-pound FT and maybe a 1/4" punch and a good stiff/hard backup and pein away hard!! CAREFULLY!!

You will see what I mean, it's easy!!

Bolt the sucker together and be done w/ it unless you wanna Concours her...............

pdq67

You need a good gun for Aircraft work, it has to be steady and deliver blows consistantly. A rivet can work harden and crack if beat on too much with to slow of blows. I do not suggest doing what is posted above on your suspension parts. That is like using cross threaded bolts and nuts to hold in the ball joints if bolted them in.

This brings up a solution, purchace the correct Rivet set from a place like this http://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/to/rivettools.html

Get the bucking bar that you need and a gun. You might find the gun and bucking bar and set on e-bay cheap. You will first need to know the rivet head diameter before purchacing a rivet set.
Joe

Joe,

I've set sickle rivets in two hits fine so I'm not worried about it.

BUT very good points, and that's why I said to just bolt them on b/c I did..

GM didn't bolt them on b/c it's cheaper to rivet them is all!!!!!

Thanks for your concern b/c I figure most guys won't know how to pein a rivet.

pdq67

Paul,
I think it comes down to is there a difference in hand peening a rivet and using a power tool to set it. The goal is not only peen the end of the rivet to form a "shop head" but swell the shank to fill the hole completely. I've hand peened some aluminum aircraft rivets on race car ducting and brackets before I purchased an air tool to do it.

Also for me there is a difference between what I might do on my car, and what I'd recommend someone else do on theirs. I might accept some risk where I wouldn't recommend something unless I was more sure I could back it up with proof. Then you have to consider the experience and talent of the person you are talking to, and if they can do the job the way you would.

Sorry if this sounds like a lecture, it's not. I was just thinking about this thread this morning and struggling with the above issues myself.
David

Joe,

I've set sickle rivets in two hits fine so I'm not worried about it.

BUT very good points, and that's why I said to just bolt them on b/c I did..

GM didn't bolt them on b/c it's cheaper to rivet them is all!!!!!

Thanks for your concern b/c I figure most guys won't know how to pein a rivet.

pdq67

Point taken Paul!! I was thinking about the same thing David posted. As you said bolts will work fine but others have so much done that rivets will be the final detail they are looking for to each their own. I like seeing resto's done this way because it's nothing I would ever do myself. I do love seeing it though. Just this post brings to light what leanghts we go to for that "look" we want!!!

I have been in a defence and Aerospace Job since 1983 and have slammed my share of rivets over the years. I worked on the DC 10 and MD 11 Aircraft fusalage assembly lines for a while. I have also worked the ACM (Advanced Cruise missile), that was an airframe missile, flying fuel tank nuke launched from B52's and the B1B. That was a hard core mo-fo and would leave a major path of distruction!!

Paul:
You been in the rail Road right? Were you working with steele Rivets? I have never done anything with those but they must be a PITA to work with. Worst thing I have done is close tolerance holes with Ice Box Rivets dipped in liquid Nitrogen for about 1 min then we would put them in. I would do about 200 of these per day!! They assembled a nuke hardened access door on a missile, we x-rayed each one after putting them together. Drilling out of those rivets when they were bad was the hardest job I think I have ever done!!!

Ok I think I high jacked this thread enough.................next. :beers:

He, He!!

No. I figure that you are talking about building RR bridges the old-fashioned way w/ red-hot rivets and air rivet hammers!!!

RR track work here is all. We drove railroad spikes using 10 pound spike malls by hand when we laid track and gauged it's rail spacing!! You ain't lived until you've done this for weeks on end!! I can drive a rail spike w/ a pick-axe ta this day using the pointed end!!!

And I've been through MickeyD/Boeing in St. Louis and watched them hand make our fighters!!

That's why the SOB's cost SO MUCH!!! Hand made big model airplanes is all!!!

Glad they do but give me a f-- break on costs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks David for the "back-door" back-up.

pdq67

PS., and I gotta get outta SEMA and visit w/ you and lovely Mary again some time!! Had a great time that one year!!!!!!!!!!!

I like the website at inlinetube and checked the head bolts rivet, they have some very nice stuff there

Huh - No farmers here! Man every 3rd concession use to have a Black Smith Shop. If he was not in you used his shop and bucket of rivets to install new teeth onto your cutter blades and gave his wife 12 dozen eggs. - what ever happened to them days - lol

I'm a farmer, but we farm vegetables, not hay! :)

David:

Veggies? Pozzi I think I'm more Dutch then you are - lol

You should have experienced being in Guernsey and Holstein Country and have to work on your uncles Sheep farm - lol

My escape of smelling like sheep manure was to go every weekend to my cousins Sunoco Station were I pumped 260 and worked on his 56 Bel Air to prepare it for Saturday Night races at Guthrie Speed Way, Barrie ON.CDA.

We had a Lime Green 66 2 Dr Sedan Pontiac 327 6 Pac / Muncie as the garage go for.

Z15,

It's so sad to me b/c you were right about every little berg having a blacksmith shop in it, but those days are long gone!! I really don't know what the real farmers where I grew up by Atlanta, MO do to get their sickles re-toothed...

My long gone Blacksmith Buddy taught me how to sharpen them using his homemade sickle bar grinder setup, as well as how to knock them off using his post vise and a 3 pound FT, then how to knock the left in place half rivets outta the bar, and then finally how to install the new teeth w/o bowing the bar b/c if you did, you had to straighten in by hand which was kinda a pain..

Back to the A-arm b/j rivets.

I know guys like concurs so be it, but it's just too much of a hassle to rivet them right, myself so I bolted mine on..

I will bet you a dollar to a donut hole that GM used an A-Arm jig and press and did all four at the same time hydraulically squeezing them riveted........

pdq67