I have a set of almost new looking Control Arms that I bought from ebay. They were advertised as being off of an 81. They look almost new, no rust. While removing the bushings (Thanks for the advice from Lars and others...) I noticed that underneath all of the arms, near where the hole is for the ball joints, the metal has been cracked. There's little cracks around the area near the underneath ball joint area. Usually there's a long crack that runs from the ball joint area and then up along the underneath side near the control arm edge. The cracks have all been welded over. The welds look to be very professionally done, the beads are very smooth. Some of the welds had to be ground out for the ball joints to fit smoothly against the control arm surfaces. Otherwise the control arms look perfect. They don't look like they've been in an accident, everything looks straight and non-distorted.

Is it possible that during manufacturing, the steel cracked during the pressing process and the cracks were repaired at the factory that did the pressing. Anyone seen anything like this? Any reason to be concerned about using these control arms?

Thanks

 

I doubt it. I think they would have discarded any faulty parts and used a good. Though, I think those repairs happened after it left the factory.

 

i doubt the factory would have bothered spending time repairing damaged A arms. If the cracks were TIG welded (typically smaller smoother beads) then it was not the factory
GM would have never accepted a repaired part.
Most likely they cracked due to metal fatigue. That is my .02 cents