A method of swaging a head gimbal assembly (HGA) to an actuator arm comprises positioning a tubular element on the HGA adjacent a hole in the actuator arm; restraining the subassembly; providing a rod formed from a shape memory alloy (SMA), the SMA having a martensitic phase at a low temperature and an austenitic phase above a phase transition temperature that is higher than the low temperature, the rod having an initial diameter that is smaller than diameters of the tubular element and the hole; extending the rod through the tubular element and hole; heating the rod above the phase transition temperature such that the rod expands to a second diameter that is greater than the initial diameter to plastically deform the HGA and swage together the HGA and actuator arm to form an assembly; cooling the rod and removing the rod from the assembly such that the rod returns to the initial diameter.