The Worst Casting I Have EVER Welded 

I think that in your case the customer had invested so much of their own time in trying to source a replacement part that your weld repair felt like a gift that finally solved his problem. I think that we can all relate to those sort of searches for that one special widget that we need for something and the relief that we feel on finding either the widget or a close cousin of it.

Thanks for being so considerate. I think thats what his customer should have done too or at least pay half of it. Then again not everybody has the money for it, as a student i have taken people up on similar offers simply because i couldnt afford it. It feels bad but not much i could do about it :S

Ford Engine tstat or something else ?

@@markfryer9880 definitely, one i needed to search an engine it was pain. They just welded similar one in order for mw to use

As someone who tried to become a graphic artist, this reminds me how artists can think their art is total crap, whilst most other people will compliment it.

@jeffreylynch3203 thanks for posting this. I found it very interesting. I think I have experienced working with one of these exact parts that you speak of. It was a tail housing to a transfer case on a Chevy. Another welder had tried before me on the smaller of the cracks, and told the customer it was not weldable. I figured that they just didn’t adequately clean out the cracks since the tail housing piece has multiple webs and some of the sections can be quite thick. I decided to run some pre-heat and did a light wash pass over one of the cracks to see just how bad it was, and the reaction I got was unlike any type of hydrocarbon contamination in aluminum that I had dealt with before. I then tried baking the piece, after thoroughly degreasing it. Sometimes if there’s some stubborn oil stuck in the crack, and you can’t completely get it all out, at least baking the part seems to render the hydrocarbon much less volatile when welding over it. This time however baking it made no difference. I started to think that perhaps there was particles of anodizing or somethings going on here that I didn’t realize, and so I decided to lay in multiple small beads just like the poster of this video did. I intended to float out the contamination, remove the welds, re-groove and re-weld. Unlike the poster of this video however, I discovered it not through advance thought, but more of trial and error followed by more error and then a little luck. Once I kind of got this to work, I clamped the flange end of the housing hard onto my thickest steel welding table and proceeded to build up the external areas approximate 3/8 of an inch and weld out the stress riser areas that was causing this tail housing to crack in the first place. As you can imagine with so much weld going into a cast aluminum piece like this I was doubtful of the piece lasting and not re-cracking once it had some stress applied to it. I told the customer to take the piece for free and if it was still holding in a year to drop off some money for whatever he thought that it was worth. A few months later the customer came by and paid me double what I quoted him originally to do the part. As far as I know, the part is still holding, but boy did it ever try my patience!

Its also the issue of die-casting in general having porosity issues to the point where there's TSBs that talk about patching leaking cases(that aren't leaking from gaskets or seals) with epoxy or some other sealer. Also, the surface finish for die-cast is also affected by the temperature of the dies so some that looked like they had the surface finish of a frosted window were made early on in the runs before the dies heated up. Die casting is great in terms of efficiency, speed, and cost but its terrible when it comes to repairs since porosity means that every part is imperfect to a degree. Maybe this will improve when we put factories in outer space.

+1

I've had shops drop over 2000 dollars worth of labor because they were having such a difficult time with my car they didn't feel it was right to charge me for them not being able to figure it out quicker.

@@kasuraga lucky

@@popanollie1 not luck. Just a highly respectable shop that tries their best to do what's right for their customers. Their labor rate is a little on the high side compared to some shops in the area, but the quality of their work and customer service speaks volumes imo.

"Like"wise

Hi William. Where are you based in the UK?

@@JamesB_JamesB South Yorkshire mate

Great! I have family in the UK in Morley

Best wishes. Good luck.

Hey, William. I’m in the US, but I’m always curious how welders charge for labor as I do some welding on the side. Got anything to offer in that regard?

Been there delt with that before many times cleaning acid does help but has to be done more then once

Just wanted to say I tell students to watch your videos. They are good.

Try inconel, or Sandvik... they look horrible while welding 😄

Repairing motorcycle cases from the 60's and 70's really sucks....they are saturated with oil and loaded with zinc and who knows what else.

@@mikerieck306 that zinc is the killer

@@cr500_conversions zinc MUST be removed indeed

It was from a Suzuki, so you better believe it was the lowest quality part out of any vehicle manufacturer on the face of this planet.

@@SergeantExtreme ever heard of Lada ?

@@kevinkevinski5101 At least Lada has the excuse of being Soviet owned. Suzuki is a Japanese company, and as such is held to much higher standards (think Honda/Toyota/Subaru).

The look of the bead has almost nothing to do with the strenght of the joint, especially on aluminum: you don't have to trust my words; you can cheack a video about this on welding tips and trick, where they illustrate that most of the instagram looking beads are not full penetrated beads

@The Truth of the Matter Absolutely!

@The Truth of the Matter Given that the part is soaked with hydrocarbons, would slowly heating the part up in an oven like environment cause the hydrocarbons to in effect sweat out of the metal?

OXY , ACETYLENE IS THE ANSWER

@@markfryer9880 Was about to ask the same question, it seems pretty obvious to bake the part, but maybe that can cause other problems.

@@Decayrate-of-Ravn-Rike my guess would be severe warping, its not designed for the heat of an oven

At what point do you just make a mold and recast the part? 😂

@@MarcosElMalo2 👍

*cries in 1984 E30 325e*

Yup 🍻😎. Lake Havasu ☀️ AZ

Add some video man so people can learn. I still can't understand how to setup this frequency, arc balance, start/end etc etc. What I always do was adjusted all that bit by bit till I feel it has a good puddle. Of course it's a time wasting but I haven't found a good teacher.

@@zuhalfast3388 that is the best way to learn what the welder does is by wwlding and adjusting to see what it does on the weld

@@tke7mu0u absolutely right man, nobody can give a chart to see amps, you should learn by yourself by trying and wonder wich is the correct amperage for you are going to weld.... You are doung great Zuhal

The cheap home gamer pressure washers often use some kind of horrible pot metal for the pump housings, not surprised you had issues.

@@ferrumignis , really, not sure I'd really call it aluminum. Just enough to make the zinc hard.

Just saw your comment and had to reply, I just did a set of cracked M/T valve covers too. Very difficult to complete such an easy looking repair.

How did that turn out? I have the same trans In my driveway with a broken ear on it. Lol Did you apply heat as well to get crud out of the crack and run torch over crack then try a bead? Or did you grind some of the crack out?

@@kristopherfrootloops6714 yes, I removed as many electronics as I could (to prevent frying anything), preheated the cast housing area, turned cleaning balance up a little, and then just went to town. It didn't turn out pretty at all, but it's aligned to where it needs to be and holding.