Datsun 521 Ball Joint Mod - Page 6

Chronicles my work of converting the kingpins to ball joints on a Datsun 521.   

The stand out features of this mod are that it will retain the stock track width and torsion bar suspension.
This vid is mainly just me yakking about where everything is set at, some of the concessions that had to be made and why.  I'll have to redo the upper arm plates, the wheel will end up about 3/8" forward of stock position.  
I'm going to push this project aside for just a bit to get some other things done.  I'll be back on it in a few weeks.
Yea!!  I finish the dies and they work!!  .....sort of.  They work awesome on a blank, but not if they're pre-cut.  It all seemed kind of obvious after the fact.  I may try one more thing that was suggested and see if it works.
More reworking of the female half of the die.  I added rollers to keep from scarring the metal and during the process, realized that the original hole wasn't wide enough.  I get the holes drilled in this vid, but the next vid finishes off the series.
I figured out how to finish the corners of the die with the mill so that I didn't have to hand file them.  The die kinda worked.  Scarred the metal pretty badly.  In a later vid, I realized that the width of the hole must be too narrow.  I love making tools.......didn't say I was any good at it!!  :)
This vid is mostly about machining the female half of the die set. 
This is still part of the ball joint mod, but since it's specifically about the bending die, I figured I'd title it differently.  
I was looking to build a die set that would allow me to bend the sway bar mount in one operation.  Overall, it didn't work out as well as I had hoped, but I learned a few things about machining and bending metal along the way :)
Final touches on the braces.  Cut another LCA to prove the measurements...perfect!  Next up is the sway bar mount.