I didn't do it myself, I gave it to my welder to do, so I am not sure exactly what he used...but I do seem to recall him making a comment that it was a little tricky welding the thin outlet pipe to a cast housing.

 

how much did you pay to have it updated?

 

I did it when I was "already there" for other work. If you had this done by itself it would cost about 2K just for the labor to remove and replace it. The welding is nothing...

If you don't have an issue with it, you are better off waiting until you do. If the motor is out for something else, that would be the time to do it. That's what I did....took advantage of the motor being out and welded it up, so I don't have to worry about this particular failure again.

 

my motor is currently out. What should I tell my welder to do?

 

Have your shop remove the part being held in the picture below and weld the inlet and outlet fittings to the main body. If you look closely, you will note the fitting is missing on the side closest to view. This is the side that became loose and suddenly disconnected causing a massive loss of coolant in seconds.

 

Hmm, Is that possible?

for simplicity: take an aluminum pipe, cut it in half, and glue it back together. There is an adhesive that can do this and be stronger than original? A proper weld will be very close to original strength.

 

Are there any additional glued fittings on the motor that should be welded other than on this part?

Also- did you weld in the original fittings, or did you buy new ones from the "shop in Oregon?"

 

Glueing it together in a Girth Weld fashion no i wouldnt say so. but if you overlap two metals there plenty of ways to make it stay together 3M has some really cool stuff in their not published catalog alot of aerospace companies use.

now in this situation id prefer to braise the connection as it will be simpler then trying to tig the conenction.

i was simply replying about glue/adhesive is already everywhere on cars not anything new.

 

Bottom line is the glue fails over time.. To braze this item after it has been glue will be tough. All the glue will need to be removed. You can how ever clean it the best you can and tig it over. Fixed forever! Why try to reinvent the wheel? The glue is cheaper and has less an impact on overall cost of production. A tig welder, be it a person or a robot, the equipment and gases, increase in energy consumption, and so on! The glue gets the car out of the warranty range so why do more then that?

Tim

 

Why do better than that? To maintain the reputation that they have worked very hard to earn. Building something to last just out of warranty sounds like 80's and 90's American car mentality.

 

I have seen a post on this forum citing other fittings with the same epoxy method, but I have not heard of any of the other ones failing. I only did these two, as these are the ones I had trouble with. We re-used the same fittings, I don't see why you would need to change them. Once welded, they are not going anywhere and function perfectly fine in terms of hose attachment.

 

Update: Almost 3 years later, still holding strong. I kind of forgot about this. If you are in this scenario, keep in mind, JB weld is MUCH stronger than the cheap glue they use at the factory so at the very least, you are better off then when the car was new. As long as you clean, scuff, and dry the surface before JB welding, you are golden.

 

I would concur on JB weld working well. When my second fitting blew, it was accessable from the enging bay, so we JB welded it back in place and I drove the car for over a year like that before I had to have the motor out, which is when I decided to weld them...

 

Awesome 3 years later update. That pretty well seals the deal (no pun intended) that JB weld is the way to go second to welding but a lot cheaper and easier.

 

c'mon man, that pun was fully intended ..ha

+10 on jbweld. keeping parts of my house together. why not coolant lines. i just now covered a rocker panel drip on my old bike with the stuff. miracle mix.