Well, my pushrod didn’t work out. Tonight I spent time locating and riveting the threaded ends onto the pushrod I made lay night. The rivets are tricky to set because they are so long, and not fully supported inside the tube. They have a tendency to tip over, and the advice Vans gives it to use a hand squeezer and go slow. My first rivet didn’t work, so I drilled it out and tried again. The second attempt was better, but I realized that the holes I had drilled were not precise enough, and not exactly through the center of the tube. The result was a rivet shop head that wasn’t uniform in it’s distance from the tubing. It was essentially set on an angle. I pressed on, and set the next rivet, and noticed my imprecise hole alignment again. But the real show-stopper came at the other end where for some reason, the fitting had rotated slightly between drill holes, and the holes just didn’t line up well enough. So, now it’s time to make another one and put this one on the “experience” pile.
