I have just done the "impossible"and WELDED my carburetor float bowl successfully!

808Airhead · Post by **808Airhead** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 7:57 pm

After buying a very early 1951 R51/3 the owner had "JB welded" a large 3/8" hole in the bottom of the float bowl. I talked to some experts including Vech whom adamantly stated it is IMPOSSIBLE to weld pot metal successfully. Well fortunately for me I am tenacious and hard headed and have to find things out for myself. Facing the possibility of buying a set of old carbs of unknown quality or new incorrect carbs I took a chance on a product that some here are aware of,and in my driveway actually welded a scrap carb for practice and then my 22 mm carb,and it worked GREAT!! Will post pictures this evening. I may offer this service for those that have some old valuable carbs they want to save that otherwise are good but have a hole in the bowl,or bad threads. This stuff works so well,and bonds to the pot metal,you can grind it and tap it and it is permanent metal not epoxy....and NO ,it is NOT alumaloy!!

jrapose · Post by **jrapose** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:05 pm

I saw some stuff at a gun show where they were welding beer cans together... it was amazing... I think it was brazing using a low melting alloy of some sort....sure did a slick job on aluminum cases and tiny parts... they were selling the stuff and telling folks that they could weld up holes in aluminum fishing boats... amazing rod stuff...they were using a gas torch ...I wish I had bought some.,. I have a carb with a crack on the bottom...

Joel

808Airhead · Post by **808Airhead** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:49 pm

Here are some pictures. Joel the beer can welding stuff is probably "alumalloy"and have read mixed reviews and some say it is great stuff...........for welding beer cans! This stuff is amazingly stout and I welded this scrap carb and filed/chiseled/pried at it,and it is one with the carb! Check out these first attempt

Look at that bead!!

The first picture shows where I was filing the crap out of it to see if it would "flake off"....nope.

808Airhead · Post by **808Airhead** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 10:03 pm

Here is the carb in question

A pretty big hole! I had to use a ceramic "holder" to sit the floatbowl in ,so the weld rod would not just flow through the hole. This worked great as the ceramic bowl acted as a non stick "backing plate".

808Airhead · Post by **808Airhead** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 10:10 pm

Here is the machine it is going on! I cannot wait to finish up this bike,it is gonna be great.

808Airhead · Post by **808Airhead** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 10:18 pm

Here is the finished product! I also will be welding up a stripped floatbowl screw hole and re-tapping the threads. Will post pictures of the thread repair when I am finished with it. If you look closely at the last picture inside the floatbowl,you can see there is liquid/solvent in the floatbowl and it does not leak a drop

Darryl.Richman · Post by **Darryl.Richman** » Sun Aug 02, 2015 8:44 am

There are various products that can work in this area. I've fixed a Bing float bowl with holes like that using a product called Muggyweld from Caswell. It's a low temperature solder product that will fill surprisingly large holes, but is strong enough to file and grind on afterwards to finish it.

808Airhead · Post by **808Airhead** » Sun Aug 02, 2015 2:26 pm

Darryl.....I googled pot metal welding and a thread where you had mentioned muggyweld came up,and you had never posted your results,so I searched some more and bought some. This stuff is above and beyond all expectations. Very easy to work with and very easy to tap and shape it. It is surprisingly "hard" when it cools down,and strong. Every book on restoration says the same thing about pot metal being impossible to repair....not anymore! I LOVE science!!!

808Airhead · Post by **808Airhead** » Mon Aug 03, 2015 4:41 am

Ok,at this point,I have fixed the floatbowl holes in each carb,filled/drilled/re-tapped a stripped floatbowl cover screw hole,and just for fun,I added some material to the missing carb top locating tabs (these,as most Bing carbs,had the tabs missing from both carbs). After cleaning the broken tab area,I added a glob of "weld" and when cool filed to shape and now I have carb top tabs! Awesome! I love this stuff,really stoked to find it and try it.

Darryl.Richman · Post by **Darryl.Richman** » Mon Aug 03, 2015 9:33 am

Sounds like you're now just going around the garage looking for things to solder up!

Hmm, I should consider fixing the threads on the float bowl for my R12... Now you've got me doing it!