Twin Disc conversion for Triumph Trident

First step was to machine the caliper bracket from a suitable aluminium billet.

A flat was milled on the fork leg.

The bracked was placed in position on the fork leg & held with two small tack welds.

 Followed by a larger tack on the back of the bracket.

The bracket was fully welded to the fork leg on both sides & the welds were smoothed, blended & lightly polished. Then a bracing rib was added.

The finished fork leg after final smoothing, blending & light polishing of the welds and drilling & tapping the holes for the caliper bolts. New one on the right, original on the left.

Brake Caliper Bracket for twin disc brakes on Triumph Trident

Kawasaki ZX Motorcycle Frame

This Alloy motorcycle frame was brought to us when the customer, having taken the engine out, noticed that the box section rear cross member wasn't actually fixed to the main frame. It seemed as if the weld had cracked. However, when we ground the metal away to provide a good chamfer for re-welding, we found that the cross member was anodised where it entered into the side part of the frame. It appears that it was never properly welded in the first place! With the engine installed, the engine mounting bolts held everything together so the fault never became apparent until the engine was taken out.

Not the neatest of welds but good & strong & definitely joining both parts together!

Cracked Gearbox - disaster!

This was a Ford Escort gearbox which had been cracked underneath & was leaking oil. It was brought to us complete (just the gearbox, not the whole car!) & still with oil in it
Could we weld it up?.......
One problem was that we didn't know how thick the casing was so couldn't run the risk of using too much power & burning a hole through the casing & couldn't grind out the cracks for fear of going through. That exacerbated the main problem, that the cracks were dirty/oily & that though the outside of the casing can be cleaned, the inside of the casing was still oily. Welding over the cracks just drew the dirt & oil out & contaminated the weld.



This can be seen here as sooty discolouration & holes in the weld.

Sometimes you can get away with it by cleaning the surface again & grinding the weld off and going over it again. The "dirt" floats to the top of

the weld pool so it gets removed when you grind the weld off (in theory - if it's not too bad).

In this case, the contamination just kept coming through.

The weld continues to grow & still keeps cracking.

The final complete mess! Full of holes & craters. Still cracked, still leaking - a complete waste of time.

The correct way to do this would have been to strip the gearbox completely so that the casing could be thoroughly cleaned inside & out, the cracks could be ground out to remove any dirt/old oil in them & it could be welded on both sides to ensure a good weld. Then rebuild the gearbox.

But that would have cost more than buying a secondhand gearbox, which is what the customer ended up doing & we should have told him to do in the first place!

You live & learn.

Air Conditioning Pipe

This pipe is from an air conditioning system on a car. The engine mounts had collapsed & allowed a pulley to contact the pipe & wear it away. When brought to us, only a pinhole was visible in the damaged area, but a poke with a scriber soon revealed how much of the aluminium was worn away & not just dented.

Even if the problem had been just a tiny pinhole, the repair would have been done the same way:-

Cut a little patch from sheet aluminium & TIG weld it in position all around the damaged area.

Trying to weld over the hole just vapourises the fluid remaining in the pipe which then contaminates the weld. Using a patch gives a much better chance of getting a good weld with no pinholes (& leaks). Even so, extraction is needed to suck away the fumes that come out of the end of the pipe & in this case, the rubber hose which is clipped to the aluminium pipe was put into a tub of water to keep it cool while the welding was being done.

Bell Housing Modification

This was a fairly simple job. The customer brought the bellhousung to us with the Aluminium block clamped in position. This was needed to attach a non-standard clutch release mechanism. The parts were in a nice clean condition, so it was a case of switch the TIG welding machine on, turn up the amps (about 200 to start with), put 3 big tack welds on to hold the block in position, remove the clamp & weld around the join. It needed to be repositioned several times & access was tight in some places, but we managed to weld all the way around the block for a good strong join.

Waterjet Drive Unit (Boat Propulsion)

This Aluminium casting is part of a waterjet propulsion unit for a fairly sizeable boat. The inside had corroded to such an extent that it had created a hole through the side. First step was to clean off the paint around the hole.

Then an Aluminium plate was welded over the hole.

Window winder repair

We had a couple of these brought to us in the space of a week or so (& haven't seen another one since!). One from an old Mercedes (a 220 CE ?) , the other from an old british sports car (an MGB maybe). Both over 30 years old. Not sure which one is shown below.

Just a few teeth worn away so that the pinion slipped on the quadrant & the window wouldn't wind back up.

Little blobs of metal deposited with a MIG welder.

Then filed to shape.

Vintage FN Motorcycle Casting

This is an Iron Casting from an old FN Motorcycle (part of the housing for the sidecar driveshaft) . Part of it had broken & the missing piece had been lost completely.

After cleaning by bead blasting & building up with weld using Nickel based rods (MMA or "stick" welding), the part was ground & filed to shape.

Nearly good as new!

Stainless Steel Balustrade Post

Here, a bracket fitting has been TIG welded to a Stainless steel tube to form the top of a balustrade post which was to be cut to fit over a wooden staircase stringer. After welding, the join was ground & sanded down so that it was invisible & the balustrade looked like one solid piece.

The finished Post in position with handrail bracket, handrail & glass "clip"

At the bottom end of the stringer post, a small piece of 2mm thick stainless steel sheet was welded across the cut end so that it would be closed off when fitted to the stringer. Very easy to burn through when welding the corners! & this was the last bit to do on a fairly expensive (by now) post.

This is the finished post fixed in position on the staircase stringer

Alloy Wheel split rim repair

This is not what you'd normally think of as an alloy wheel with a split rim - a 2 or 3 piece wheel bolted together - but a one piece wheel (Ford Focus ST) where a severe kerbing had split the rim!

Here, the paint has been sanded off around the damaged area (yes, alloy wheels are painted with aluminium paint!) and the crack has been ground out with a high speed burr.

The crack on the inside of the rim was also ground out .

The crack was TIG welded on the outside & the lip of the rim was also built up with weld where it had been ground away. The scorched area on the right is where the paint was not sanded off far enough back from the weld & has burnt.

The crack is welded on the inside of the rim

The outside of the rim is filed & smoothed.

Finally, the weld is filed & smoothed off on the inside. The wheel is now ready to be repainted.

Bicycle frame repair

A bicycle frame had cracked across this bracket.

The paint was cleaned off either side of the break,

& the crack ground out to a "vee" section on both sides.

The broken parts were then TIG welded back together. Made a bit trickier because the bracket had originally been brazed into the frame tubes & the heat from the TIG torch melted the braze, some of which ran into the weld & produced Zinc fumes.