Yes you can clamp them without welding. They fit tight as is, I had to take a file to the inside of the tubes where they are joined together to get em to slide on.
Actually used a rubber hammer to force them all the way on, compressed the springs then tapped them into place.
Sorry for all the questions, probably should have made my own thread, but y'all have been responding on here and have been very helpful so just a couple more things:
1. Are you talking about clamping on the shocks over the forks? Doesn't seem like that would compress the steel tube much to create a solid clamp force, or clamping above the shock on the forks to prevent them sliding up the forks?
2. Looks like top tube on shock is a little long to fit before first crossbar on bike forks, did you end up cutting the shocks a little short as well, or does the pre-load from the bikes weight compress the shocks that far.
3. How much of the forks did you cut off. I'm guessing if you cut the two right, you can have some room for adjustment on where the shocks sit on the forks to adjust ride height.
4. How did you compress the shocks when you were tapping them on.
Again, sorry for all the questions, I'd probably just try to figure it out on my own, but I'm hoping to go riding this weekend, and hoping to get this mod done before that, but don't want to end up with a bike with no front end because I did something wrong lol.
When I get all this done I'll post some pics and an intro as a new thread. Did a seat spring mod this past weekend to post too.