Houdaille lever shocks: cutting and welding arms

I've got a pair of large Houdaille lever shocks to use for my 1932 Studebaker Indy car project. For the front axle, I need to have arms that are about 5.5" center-to-center. I can't find any that short and the ones I have are 10.5" long and have the wrong bends. Since these arms are forged steel, I'm planning on heating them to bend them to obtain a different offset, then cut them to take out 5" of length and weld them back together. The cross-section of the arm is a flattened ellipse, about 1.8"x.6" at the fat end. I know that the parts should be heated thoroughly before welding and then allowed to cool slowly in a bucket of sand to avoid cracks in the welds. Normally, safety laws don't permit welding on Pitman arms, but I figure it ought to be acceptable on non-critical things like shock arms.

Has anyone else done something like this? Any advice or things to watch out for? I Photoshopped a picture to show how I want it to look.

Sounds like a plan. Vee out deeply and weld as described. 6011 will penetrate deep for first pass or two, finish pass with 6013 for looks. Should be fine. If it fails so what?...............Bob

I would think that taking half of the length will have a major effect on the performance.

Yes, I expect that they will be relatively stiffer, Jack. But, this is a replica of a race car and the springs are very stiff already, need stiff shocks to match. I'm just copying what the factory (and the chassis builder in Indianapolis) did originally. The good news is that Houdaille lever shocks can be adjusted for stiffness by setting the valve position, so the performance can be tweaked a bit. Here's a photo of one of the five original Studebaker Indy cars. You can see how short the shock arms are.

Looks like fun stuff alright.