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Suzuki Repair - the saga continues...

Well - the spare engine case needs a 0.5 OS piston and rings. Seamark Nunn were telling me that they are no longer available - then they seem to be telling me they can get them - still don't really know.

Talking to the motorcycle man - he was singing the praises of Weld Tech HTS 2000 - its a new version of Lumaweld, that will braze ally at propane torch heat - 370c.

So attacked the engine case again armed with three sticks of shiny stuff. Had a quick practice on a piece of heavy ally plate - worked well. But you have to get it pretty damn hot and when I tried to tin an edge of the spare engine case - on the thin wall the ally was beginning to go - so you have to be really careful, if you have varying thickness adjacent.

The engine case was really a pretty tough challenge - with one edge backed up against the cast bore liner and the thin inlet chamber right next to it.

Made up a support jig for the hollow water jacket and edge with some thin steel ( the stuff does not react to steel at all )

Not pretty - but its there to stay...

I put the whole casing in the oven for 45 mins - then it still took a real load of heat to get it up to tinning temp. So worried about that inlet chamber ! Managed to get it to tin all the edges - and tin my broken pieces. Therein was the problem - once tinned they did not fit in to the hole too well !

Still - got there in the end - took a long time. Even if I still have a pinhole weep it will not matter too much - so long as main area is sound it will not blow off. I finished it over now with a layer of chemical metal epoxy, mostly to feather out an ugly looking repair !

I'm getting a new set of standard rings - an have the bore honed through to deglaze it.

Very impressed with this stuff - although this was a very awkward repair to test it out. For more simple stuff its fine - and its lack of bond to steel means you can re-thread by means of tinning and melting with the bolt in - screw out afterwards.

Frost retoration sell it - not the Lumaweld, the mk 2 version. Its actually called HTS2000 and put out by Weld Tech, USA.

2008 - May 20th.

Well it starts fine - very slight weep still, but the new rings seem to help it along. Went ok down to the mooring and back. I've also now got an oversized new piston and rings for the other engine case - took an age to get. So if it goes again - I can rebuild around the other case.

May 2010

I've had my spare case rebored to fit the new piston - so I'm just waiting for my repair to fail. Two years on though - and this spring I took the prop off, plopped it in a bucket of water - sat in shed for 9 months, same fuel - first pull ! Still no sign of any leaks - and my god it was an ugly weld job. It will go sometime - but I have a spare now. Small outboards have gone through the roof it would seem. Should have picked up a honda 2.5 when they were going for £430 !!!