Saving Old Seagulls

Hi:

One of the flanges on the cylinder head, into which the tank mounting bolts fit, has broken off. It looks like it's inter granular corrosion. Can it be welded back on?

The engine, a recently acquired 40 Plus, runs just fine after a bit of tweaking. Is there any jury rigging that anyone can suggest short of removing the bolts marked "DO NOT REMOVE" and installing a new cylinder head? I just hate to tear down an otherwise perfectly functioning engine.

As an alternative, I was thinking about using some high temperature epoxy to glue it back on, perhaps JB Weld which is allegedly good up to 500 deg F. Local guys swear by the stuff but I have to think the cylinder head may get too hot.

http://jbweld.net/products/jbweld.php

In the new kit, dept, in the local lawn and garden store (Lowes), I found a $2.17 hose fitting which screws on to a garden hose to produce a 3/16 stream of water. 5 minutes of work with a Dremel tool allowed me to grind down the edges so that I could hold it by hand in the cooling water outlet to back flush the engine. It works extremely well and I even stayed dry when flushing the system. No one has an excuse not to do this regularly now.

I have had a similar experiance, I cut two two inch lenths of stainless flat bar. Drilled two holes at ether end and then redrilled the head further back. Fixed it with a couple of stainless bolts and nylock nuts, fixed the tank. your set for another thirty years or so untill it needs a decoke. Hope this helps and while im on dont forget to but a thicker spacer under the tank bolts, i used 1/4 inch washer made from rubber.I dont back flush but ten again i dont use mine in salt water.

Don't bodge it.

If you can't find a new head locally I have a spare if you want to pay for the postage from the U.K.

Good excuse to clean out the cylinder water passages.

H-A

i've had good luck with the aluminum brazing rods you can get from hardware stores. trouble is getting enough heat with home workshop propane torches. You need to MAP gas at least (hardware stores have bottles of that too). the area to be brazed has to be 750*F, but aluminum conducts heat so well that you almost have to get the entire piece to that temp.

Aluminum can easily be welded with MIG or TIG by any weld shop. not sure if it'll cost any less than what you might get a new head for, but worth looking into. at any rate - save the broke pieces in case some day you make a new buddy that might be a welder.

Horsley-Anarak wrote:Don't bodge it.

H-A

H-A:

The "Don't bodge it" comment hurt... I know I can apply some Eskimo engineering to get it on but every time I look at it when pulling the starter I will think.... "Don't bodge it!" Since winter is going to arrive next week, I will have some time to work on it before spring.

I appreciate the offer. I will try to source one locally (ie: North America) and if I run into problems, I will may take you up later.

Thanks for the kind offer.

Pete

Had a quick look, Airmail small package to Canada £5.43 (375 grams inc s/hand gasket) could not find Alaska so may be more.

Did not mean to hurt with bodge comment, but there are loads of 40 heads about.

I would think that it is not worth the expense of a repair attempt, and if you say there is granular corrosion you may find that it will not weld well.


H-A

H-A

Thanks for the kind offer. I understood the "bodge" comment and took it as intended. I tend to keep and use equipment forever and I have driven myself nuts on occasion when I fixed something well enough to keep it going but it nonetheless looks kludged up. It's a constant reminder that I should have been more careful or took more time to do the job right the first time. I really get irritated when I have to fix up someone else's shoddy work.