I have broken two of these shifters previously, both during a 1-2 shift, in bumper-to-bumper traffic and both in the exact same spot; the spot weld seen here:



So I want to run a bead around this flange to add some strength and hopefully prevent another broken shifter in traffic:



It is made of stainless (not sure on the specific alloy) and I was wondering if hitting it with a cheap 90 amp fluxcore machine would help at all, or do I need to take it in somewhere to be tig'ed.

 

sure. grind some of the top off, and try it. cant hurt. then clean it up and paint it so it doesnt rust immediately.
your mild wire would quickly rust if you didnt.

 

But will it actually penetrate enough to make a difference?

It's a cheapo Harbor Freight 115v welder...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Gutted Hatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">But will it actually penetrate enough to make a difference?

It's a cheapo Harbor Freight 115v welder...</TD></TR></TABLE>

It will most likely work. If to doesn't its not the biggest deal in the world.

 

even 1/32" of pen. around the whole thing will hold quite a bit of force.

 

if you know how to run a bead with it properly, not the birdshit spatter you usually see from those machines from amateur welders your shifter should hold quite a bit more force than how it came with the plug welded shaft.

however, you may experience clearance issues so be sure to take a dremel or die grinder and grind out a V groove in your material between the washer part and the base metal.

yeah it'll rust, but the time it takes to rust through and fall apart will be longer than you likely own the vehicle for, unless you live somewhere that has massive road salt or something, paint would help if you wanna go that route.

 

Cover the ball part in some anti spatter spray so you don't have to grind it down if you get some spatter on it.