Well, I fixed that. I added material to the case with a Lincoln ProMIG 135 that I adapted to run a Lincoln Magnum 100SG spool gun. The two are not compatible from Lincoln. I had to break the welder open to make some modifications and add a switch - it was pretty easy though. I really need to get in the habbit of taking more pictures and sharing them...
Anywho, I've done a lot of experimenting with it, because I can't really afford a bottle argon whenever I need to do aluminum, so I've been using 75/25. You can forget about doing anything without pre-heat. It'll just sit there and poop aluminum nuggets all over your casting.... they stick, but it's literally goat droppings piling up on your case. Preheat to about 500*F and then weld and you get great penetration. Pretty sure I had wire feed on 9 or 10 and amperage on C. You really have to keep the wire feed dialed up or it spills through the back of the casting. The outside looks pretty terrible, but once you get INTO the weld, it's plenty good for non-structural work.
When I was playing around with pre-heat, amperage and wire feed - I kept getting really crumbly material. I've played with it enough though that the added aluminum is soft enough to run taps through and cut really nice threads and be plenty soft. If you don't have your settings right it will just crumble if you try and tap it. Graham Motzing said that it's like a hot glue gun and it really is... There is no discretion where you put this stuff. It's all over the place. SHOTGUN WELDING! I really want to get some argon though to see what the welds would look like...
So, the big problem I always have is I have no mill and no lathe. I get around this, but it sucks. I use belt sanders as a milling device :) and they work pretty well. Filing things flat is quite possibly the worst thing you could ever have to to. Files are great for finishing and re-finishing, but forget trying to deck anything with them.... It takes forever and always ends up as a banana surface.
So, there's definitely porosity near the surface of the added material, but inside, it's typically really good (for mopeds). This surface worked just FINE for my purposes. It drilled and tapped well too.
The goood thing is now I have the stock to make SHA intakes as well. I'm sure that'll come in handy. I just free-hand no1curr'd the intake holes, so whatever. It's not like it's going into production. It just has to work. Pretty pleased with how it turned out.
Then, I finally got to ride the Vespa again! I drove back Friday night to meet up with some Cranks and take them out to Tellico for the T.A.T. adventure. Saturday, I went to sleep at 5 and woke up at 8:30 and had beer and charcoal bacon for B-fast. YUM. Drove back to pickup a bike for my friend off CL, but ended up making more sense to rent a trailer, take my friend Alex and his bike with us and get the bike on the way out there - a 1966 Yamaha YA-6.
Made it out and the trail was a ton of fun. The water crossings were brutal on electrical and took the belts a minute to dry out after riding through. I also got a huge dent in my pipe from hitting a rock in the trail - you can see it in the last pic.
When we left, one of the guys that runs the camp ground told us he had some old hondas we might want some parts off of. It was an old CT90 and an SL100. Both were over grown with weeds, seized forks, seized wheels, no engines and rusty. We took 2 honda tanks, a kawasaki tank, some beefy shocks, a brake caliper with linkages I need for my derbi and the high pipe from the CT. I was tempted to grab the SL rolling frame, but it needed so much. It's going to be recycled and I hate that, but it's really what needs to happen.
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