Wonderful explanation on the brazing technique... However, in my experience, the angle point should only matter when the rubber hose is going to be installed as a point of reference for final product installation. That way the hose will adopt all twists and turns to fit nicely in the vehicle. Now, if the repair piece would have had an angle, then the orientation point would have mattered at the welding time because it will keep both ends in the desired connecting position.
What kind of torch and flame gas you are using. I use butane gas CAN and normal torch and flux inbuilt rod to weld but 90% of it fails. Pipe got white carbon and material doesn’t stuck and rod doesn’t melt properly. Please tell me about the gas, torch & rod u are using and if possible give me link of the products
Hi Mark, thanks for watching the video. That is a little tricky until you get some practice in because there is a very short window before the aluminum will melt depending on how thick the tube is. Here are some pointers and things to look for as you are brazing that will make it go easier. The first thing is to not try to melt the rod before the tube is hot enough. You really want the tube to melt the braze rod just like if you are soldering a wire. You can get the melt started with the flame when the tube is ready, but you want it to be able to flow around the tube once you start. If you stick the rod in there before it's time the rod will melt and glob on to the tube and make everything harder. I've had stuff globed all over the tube so much that I had to stop, clean everything off and just start over. You can tell when the tube is almost ready by watching the flame. When you start heating the tube the flame coming off of the tube is blue or purple. As the tube heats up it will start to turn orange. Orange is what you are looking for, but at that point the window is starting to close. Once the flame starts to turn orange you can stick the rod in and drag it across the tube to see if it melts on to the tube. Keep doing that until it melts and starts to flow. Once that starts you want to keep feeding the rod in because the rod melting draws enough heat to keep the tube from melting. If you can just quickly move the flame around the tube while following it feeding the rod in everything turns out great. It takes just a little practice go get the first time, but it's not hard at all to pick up and once you do it feels really good! The other thing to be careful of is if you are trying to braze onto something big it may take too long to heat up and by the time the braze melts so does everything else. The bigger and fatter the piece the more the heat gets dissipated. Some things you may want to have welded or use a hotter flame like Acetylene/Oxygen. With that you have to be really careful because you can melt it in a heartbeat. I hope this helps and thanks again for watching.
@@jeffmay4393 Thanks, Jeff, yes, I have two pinholes in the A/C lines, and I went one for two; the 2nd pinhole got clumped from direct heat on the brazing rod. Today, I will clean up the globs and try again using your suggestions. The main obstacles I'm facing is the aluminum tubing is still attached to the Duramax and my work angles (angle of approach) is tight with the battery in the way (which, by the way, caused the holes when the terminals fell onto the tubing and arced) are tight, so today I'll remove the battery and give it another shot. The other issue is the 2nd pinhole is not at 12:00 o'clock; it's more at about 2:00 o'clock, and this side-angle makes things difficult from a brazing rod-flow perspective. The AL tubing measures only 13MM across, and its wall-diameter is (I imagine) frighteningly thin, so I'm considering stepping down to Propane instead of Mapp gas for more of a graduated and controlled heating process. I'll test the flow with the rod as you suggested and avoid direct flame on the rod which caused the daggum clumps. Thank again, Jeff!
@@markh.2899 Yes pin holes are especially hard to fix. Most of the time we cut the tube with a pinhole and make a sleeve from a bigger tube and then braze it like in the video. We usually have a stock pile of old tube pieces to look through or sometimes we need to cut a tube from an ac fitting. Good luck and be careful.
@@jeffmay4393 Yes, that makes a lot of sense, and it parallels some of the sprinkler line fixes I've done. I actually ordered and received the replacement part from Amazon, but I thought I'd try the AL brazing rod fix first- we'll see, and I'll let ya know how it went. I will say that even if I cannot fill the 2nd pinhole, it's fabulous to know that I have some knowledge of this craft and will continue to build my AL brazing proficiency. Thanks, Jeff!
Anyone know a company who does this? I need my ac line refurbished since it’s no longer in production by the manufacturer and can’t be found at a junk yard.
