Hitchcocks Forum

Hi everyone, I recently bought RE meteor 1955 and I would like to hear your opinion on how to manage a damage that I found inside the crankcase. What do you suggest?





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Petros, this is very common I'm afraid, it is usually the result of a broken con-rod hitting the camshaft tunnel after a major engine blow up. The good news is that this damage is very minor to what I usually see. It is more usual that the end of the broken con rod smashes through the bottom of the engine too! You can repair this with JB Weld or some other type of 'liquid steel'. Make a pice of aluminium to fit inside the camshaft tunnel and stick it in place with the JB Weld. You could just use JB weld only, you only need to repair the tunnel enough to let the camshaft sit in a puddle of oil. The original design allows the camshaft to be immersed in it but this isn't really necessary. Just make sure there is clearance so the camshaft can be inserted ok and rotate properly when the 2 halves of the cases are assembled. Good luck!

REgards, Mark

Thanks Mark for the info. Should I ask a welder to try some kind of repair welding or it is not possible to achieve better result than JB weld?

A good welder can do a permanent job on that, BUT, do your homework and ensure that they are good?, A poor welder can create havoc.

Hi Petros, if you can get it alloy welded, that would be best. Failing that, I would use 'Devcon' - this stuff is approved by Lloyd's of London as an insurable repair to cast marine engine components, pump bodies etc. I used some recently to repair the broken oil pump body of a Pre War Sturmey Archer engine. Very good stuff. Regards, Paul.

There are also low temperature aluminium solders which are very good. Require less heat than welding so less likely to cause warping problems. However, they do require a fair bit of heat, you need an oxy- burner of some sort to get enough heat into a crankcase casting for the solder to work. As such, an experienced hand (or a fair bit of practice on scrap) would be best to avoid melting a hole in your workpiece. I believe Allen Millyard uses lumiweld to join the bandsawed crankcases when he builds his 5-cylinder Kawasaki 2-strokes.

I've used Lumiweld to repair alloy castings. I manage with a decent propane torch.

I've used aluminium solder with a standard torch but there is a fair old mass of alloy in the place the OP has a defect. I suspect it'll sink heat away faster than it can be put in. On such bit's, I've recruited an assistant to heat the whole area with a propane blowtorch then point-heated the specific bit I'm soldering with a pen-torch style blowlamp to good effect before now.



Usual story of not enough hands. You need one for the torch, one for the solder and one for the stainless wire. I've still not worked out why (electrochemically) scratching the work area with -specifically- stainless steel wire of some sort (brush or single wire) is necessary, but it is.



I do intend to buy a MAP torch to do the job properly in future though.

I always understood that you need to wire brush the job to get through the oxide which forms very quickly on hot alloy. Once the aluminum solder "wets" the job it gets easier.