Tonight I was working on pulling the 42RH transmission from my Duster to change out the kickdown lever and installed better clutches and steels and I enlisted my eldest son to give me a hand moving it from the cart to the floor. He's at that awkward late teen stage and I try to do stuff with him otherwise if left to his own device drifts towards video games and such.

Long story short the transmission got away from him and the bell housing went bouncing off the garage floor.

*^&^())_!

As you can see I now have this wonderful addition to the case.

Racing in a few weeks not looking so good, Murphy strikes again!

Can the case be welded up with a mig? I figure I have nothing to loose at this point and a lot of time and some money invested in the transmission. It doesn't look like a high stress area. We have a nice Lincoln MIG at work and do a lot of aluminum welding but none of it is cast. One of our drivers use to weld aluminum over at Electric Boat and I was thinking about letting him take a crack at it.

Thanks for any input!

I had a bud weld the crack on my trans case, still holding up after 5 years, he heated it up to burn out the impurities.

I've migged alum... V it out and preheat it.. I
normally do both sides.. make sure its clean

Drill a small hole at the end of the crack(stops it spreading) weld it up

Yep.. drill the hole at each end

Clean, clean, clean. Do NOT use brakekleen.

Drill the end of the crack and run it.

Or it could be the last welding you ever do. Great meeting you the other day Cole and boy did I hit rain on the way home. See you next week. Thanks

Doing both sides not a problem and the crack is all the way through.

Trying hard not to get mad at the kid, don't want to discourage him.

I bet he feels worse then you do. I remember when I was 8, I was washing my dad's car with the very abrasive "Comet" clreaner, couldn't understand why the more I scrubbed, the browner It got (primer) . Might be a good time to share with him something yiu did as a kid that shows we all do things we are embarrassed about, but life goes on. Its a life lesson that can be fixed. Doesn't look like a highly stressed location, but the pic doesn't show much. I would not mig the crack, tig for me. If it gets vee'd to a point, from both sides, the crack will automatically be clean, regardless, don't get the crack wet without rapidly drying the crack, Drilling a hole achieves little if you are welding it before any use. The brake cleaner suggestions are spot on.

I had the tail shaft fall off my bench when I was
rebuilding the trans... broke a bolt ear off... I
V it out good and clamped a plate to it and welded
it back on... still running fine... I did have to
hit it on the belt sander to smooth it out.. no leaks
I tigged mine... with 1/8 rod for filler

Easy fix, as the guys have said clean. I would fully vee out, pre heat, weld and then vee out (back gouge) other side and weld again. Get the young gun to watch the repair.

I agree the kid prob feels worse than you realize. That can be fixed no problem.

This cannot be stressed enough.

But personally, I'd drill the holes at each end, V it out a bit and leave it at that - no cleaning !! Why? Because its a fresh crack and should be clean. Trying to clean it could just make it worse. If its worth anything, why not take it to someone with a tig and have it done right. Mig welding aluminum is fine for high volume production but has no place where quality and durabilty are needed. And a good tig welder can be set up to "clean".

pay someone to Tig weld it, chances are your little home mig machine doesn't have enough amps to get good penetration.

Not a home rig, work unit with enough amps to smoke holes in 1/2 plate.

When it arrived we experimented with various settings to see how far we could push before stuff started getting out of hand. Impressive machine.

The big Lincoln Power Migs have more than enough juice, if you've got the spool gun or push pull gun setup for aluminum. Still going to want pre heat for a big casting like that. S/F....Ken M

?...with a very narrow crack like that what tool can be used to v that out for welding?......Thaxs

I would just use my air grinder with a alum bit(semi pointed)

The crack itself does not determine the v groove, the thickness of the part at the crack line does, and a 45deg is a good start. Both sides only if the part has decent thickness IMO