Good morning HT. Thanks for viewing

I blew a nice hole in my oil pan and I want to try to weld it up but I'm having some issues.

I'm using a miller diversion 180 tig welder with 5356 filler rods, 100% argon pressure at 30.

I'm getting good penetration but the weld are horrible, they look very porous looking a bunch of little creaters. When I try to dab it with the filler rod it won't let me get close to the arc before it blobs up. What am I doing wrong? Am I using the wrong filler rods?
Still pretty noobish at tig welding so he easy on me lol

 

Cast aluminum by nature is porous and pieces that have been in service have lots of contaminants in it. It may take several passes on a high cleaning percentage settings to get a lot of the crap to boil up to the service. Grind after a pass without filler, and repeat until you can get to a point where you can weld.

 

You can try and bake it in a designated shop oven as well. Just be careful on how hot you let the thin cast stuff get while welding because it can be prone to cracking.

 

Deff gonna give this a shot. Thanks for the reply bro I appriciate it

 

Someone had told me something along these lines a while ago. I was told to dip the pan in acetone over night to clean the pan up. Is this true? Unfortunately I don't have a shop oven

 

I agree with the above. Contaminants are probably giving you trouble. You may have to weld and draw out these contaminants and grind away multiple times.

Try preheat with a propane torch to try to cook these out, then lightly grind out with a carbide tool (die grinder).

If you have it, I've heard that using a copper backer will help to make the weld easier:

Tig Welding Aluminum Boat Prop using a

There is also some recommendations for filler...4047 which I don't have experience with. Anyway, Jody is about as good as it gets for tig knowedge...


Good luck!

Chay

 

I soak all oil pans is clean degreaser overnight then heat with a torch then wipe down with alcohol or acetone. works well

 

Your filler blobbing up is probably as simple as an incorrect torch angle. If you lay the torch down too much, you direct a lot of heat away from the weld and towards the filler rod. Keep it as close to vertical (perpendicular to weld) as possible while still being able to see.

 

Awesome. I'm gonna put all this into consideration and try my best cleaning the pan out. Thanks a lot guys for the responses! I'm gonna leave it degreasing overnight and try this again tomm afternoon after work. I'll let you guys know how it works out. 👍

 

if you do not have an oven, a torch can be used to heat the area local to the weld in hopes of burning off oil that could remain in the material. clean the area with a carbide burr and a die grinder. do not use a belt sander, flap wheel or other like abrasive because it can embed itself into the material causing further contamination issues. set your flow around 17-20 cfm. 30 is too high. you may also want to employ a gas lens if you do not already have one.

aaron

 

 

Ive had a little experience with cast AL parts, and I basically did what Code4 and Jody from weldingtipsandtricks did. Gotta boil the crap out, then get your rod in there and start build up.

Ive mostly fixed broken trans cases and engine blocks. not a lot experience, but enough to know I dont wanna keep doing it. I was just asked to TIG a block that has a chunk broken off where hte oil press. sending unit screws in.