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Old cast alloy welding


J4m13

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I have a wee predicament.

I have an old stationary motor that I recently broke the intake runner on.

The motor itself is circa 60's, built in Germany and appears to be old cast alloy.

My welding skills are poor at best and I am in need of having it repaired.

Is this possible?? and what type of tradesman/specialist welder would be best to approach?

My initial thoughts are those who specialise in repairing motorcycle casings and the likes.

That being said, my experience in this sort of stuff are pretty limited so i'm hoping to have some ideas from folk far more knowledgable than myself.

 

Any help or suggestions would be greatly accepted.

 

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I would get the bits as clean as you can, including a good scrub with some solvent.

Then find a fabricator / someone that have a crack at it with aluminum tig. 

It is at least pretty thick so there is a decent chance of a successful repair. 

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Sandblast, clean clean clean, pre heat then fizz it up.

 

I have successfully had stuff like that done before, so not too much of a drama _ think I used a shop opposite possum bourne motorsport, but back in 2002 for a manifold repair.

Just find someone locally who doesnt mind welding it up

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13 minutes ago, mjrstar said:

I'm probably going to suggest not to sand blast, especially if the material is porous as it can lead to contamination, maybe give it a good heat up with a heat gun to see if you can bleed out any nasties.. 

better yet, chuck it in the oven to draw out any oils. But it should always be cleaned before welding regardless 

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I have done this a few times myself on aluminium sumps (modifications to change bowl location, shorten sumo etc). So, old dirty oily aluminium. 

As others have said.... Clean the crap out of it 

Grind the top layer off so that it's not covered in a layer of dirty pores.

Weld it up as best as possible. It will probably throw a tantrum and the weld will be full of shit.

Grind the weld off (including the shit that's floated to the surface)

Weld it again. 

I think I have only had to do the clean up grind once, but wouldn't be surprised if you had to do it more than once.

 

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@J4m13  We can do stuff like that at work

Auto restorations ltd 

Depends how much you want to spend to repair it.

Could be as much as half a day by the time theres cleaning welding. Rewelding where it goes shitty. And dressing back. 

It's quite doable 

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