Hot Rods Can this be welded

Clearly the gold one from our 37 year owned 37 ford coupe tail light stand broke on a road trip, the part is on the highway somewhere. Now all I have to replace it is a cracked one, obviously a design flaw, maybe. Can this casting be welded,?

 

JB weld.
Al.

 

That is pot metal? If so, it may be repaired with Muggy Weld Super Alloy 1. I have never used it, yet, but others may have.

 

Short answer is yes.

You need to either find the person who can, or learn to do it.

Some people will melt pot metal parts and pour it into slots to make their own rods. One thing to consider is that there are many pot metal recipies, so if melting broken handles, trim etc, it should be from the same manufacturer, to give you the best chance at a compatible pot metal.

Gas weld and take care, because the window between solid and liquid is narrow.

Lots of youtubes about muggy weld.

 

Send it down I'll have a look

 

Pot metal can be welded .

the machine shop by my work said they could have fixed the hood latch handle on my 40 merc that broke clean in 1/2

but could not guarantee it would not crack again as it’s a high stress part .

a light stanchon should be easy for some one who knows how .


Or as has been stated jb weld or any of the other bonding agents out there should work just fine .

Something I found that works really well is construction PL

found this out a few years ago on a customers forklift 90,000 lbs capacity unit at a steel mill , hit something in the yard and punched the oil pan , they needed it running asap .

I had nothing in my van , went down the street to a hardware store and found PL “ meh what have I got to loose?”

sealed the pan , dried quickly and worked great


Used it on a few things since .

 

Decades ago, I watched a man I worked with use an act. torch and low heat and some rod he had purchased that was a similar alloy weld pot metal with good results. I don't know what the rod was called. The process is similar to torch welding alum.

 

If its pot metal (mostly zinc) it can be soldered. Lots of tutorials on youtube on how to do this. Just look up soldering zinc

 

Speaking from experience, the words "well **** that was quick" comes to mind!

 

Once you get it welded, fill it with Kitty hair or DuraGl*** with a piece of tube through the middle for the wires. That will give it more strength so it doesn't break again.

 

I'm a forever skeptic on those swap meet weld anything rods. I don't know how many weeks those sellers practice but I never ever got them to work. Ever. Nobody I knew with weld talent could get it work either. Burn, melt, blob, garbage. This where a choir of "...and I've had awesome success and got professional results!" chimes in. Good for you. Get it the fk off my bench. BJR has the right idea.

 

I think that success or lack thereof with "swap meet" welding rods is a matter of luck. If the alloy of the rod is a good match to the alloy of the part being repaired, it can work well. However, it seems most of the time the alloys aren't even close. ("Pot Metal" is called "Pot Metal" for a very good reason.) The one time I got lucky was when a used some to repair a broken headlight bezel on my '68 Corvette. It worked so well, I amazed myself. Other times? "Burn, melt, blob, garbage." as stated above.

You'll know right off if it's gonna work or not.

 

Here are some melting points that I got off the internet.

Pot Metal/Zinc 786 F
Aluminum 1218 F
Solder 50/50 361-421 F
Silver Solder 1145 F
Zinc/Alum Solder 719 F

What I found when soldering steel was that it worked well by playing a small butane micro torch over the part and gradually bringing it up to temp rather than a full size butane torch pointed at a thin part and way too much heat too quickly. Never tried it on pot metal though. I used a liquid flux from Harris.
Try making a bare spot on your s**** spare stand and see if the solder holds on it before trying it on the good(?) stand. Still, it will be weak and need some internal support after inserting the repair piece. Notice that the original crack started from the small hole in the casting.
Then you might consider https://www.ecklers.com/tail-light-...rs&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_term=

 

Why not just cast up a new one? I've never done it myself, but there are scores of videos and info out there on how to make a casting. Or, if you're not comfortable handling molten aluminum, casting it in fibergl***? Pull a mold off of the good part, then make a new one out of fibergl***. you could make it as thick as you think it might need to be, and smoothing it out would probably be easier.

 

I'd be inclined to sand blast it and clean up the crack with a Dremel tool along with stop drilling it and sort though the JB weld offerings until I found the one that I thought would do the best job. Then Maybe run a tube through it for wires or just to take up space and fill it with epoxy if you thought you needed to.

 

I was thinking similarly. Sandblast the inside good, get it welded/soldered, then pour it full of epoxy with a corrugated plastic tube inside to run wiring through.

 

That's quite a project to avoid repairing the one you have.

 

JB weld is not weld, it's glue. Welding is an often misused term. It's when the parent metal is fused together by melting. Brazing is often used to attach broken cast iron parts back together, but that is not welding either.

 

Dang @Moriarity , I spent hours searching, and boom there it is , Back order Bob from Summit. Most vendors are out of stock .Back order Bob say “unavailable” out of stock …. typical…

 

And again, Mark IS THE MAN!!

 

here we are trying to reinvent the wheels and @Moriarity shows up with a shiny new part for a measly $60 bucks !!!!!

I love it !!!!

 

IF these are available, they would be a good starting point. By that I mean.... I would plan on a way to reinforce them internally with JB Weld (or equivalent) and steel rods, tubes etc. to avoid another failure. Henry's may have lasted for 80+ years, but I wouldn't ***ume a modern outsourced component to last that long. JMHO

 

Oh I love this! You cut to the chase while everyone else were putting on their running shoes!!! WELL DONE...

 

If all the sellers are out of stock you might hit up some of the better "usual suspects" who have a decent amount of good OEM stuff at any given time. I'd suggest @***us , eastcoastmike (partswapper on IG), Nick's in CO just for starters. Kennedy's in CA too. All have been a pleasure to deal with and very fairly priced. You may find some obscure less busy Ford shops that have the new ones too. Even with the worldwide huge numbers of Ford production I've learned buying anything early V8 is never a 1-and-done proposition. Good luck.

"HEY, YOU IN THE BACK! I SAID GET THAT **** OFF MY BENCH!!"

 

Yes i did see that one earlier but they don’t offer shipping down under. It doesn’t look like a great casting either with what appears porosity. Might have to get it sent to a good buddy’s in TX.

 

I knew a guy who owned a chrome shop back in the '70s. He soldered pot metal all the time to repair cracks and fill pits. I do not know what he used.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you repair the crack it will split again starting at the end of the crack. mildly heat it and drill a hole at he end of the crack. If you are going to paint it and not polish it you can drill a hole at the end of the crack, tap it and put a set screw in the hole. The fill it and use it.

 

Pot metal can be welded by an experienced welder. A good welding supply like C K sells pot metal rod. but remember , clean, clean and more clean.

 

yup and use a br*** or aluminum brush. never use it for anything but brushing aluminum prior to welding.