JB Weld Experiences

And here is the "after" pic.

I belong to a sailing club that owns a mid seventies Chris Craft 25' cruiser that is used as a work boat. It has a single small block Chevrolet engine. Over ten years ago the engine froze and busted. The block busted on the sides and the watercooled manifolds cracked in many places. I used a die grinder to cut a v shaped groove down each crack and filled it with JB Weld. It has held up well with no problems.
Lately, I seem to use more of the putty variety because it sets up quicker.

I have also fixed the ear on the intake on my 650, stayed there 20 years until I knocked it off the last time I had the carbs off, fixed it the same way again, figure to get another 20 out of it

Nice looking repair Skyman!
I've been a loyal user of JB Weld for years.
I had this old Chevy smallblock that actually burned a hole through an EGR passage in the intake manifold. I drilled the hole just big enough to be round again, then I slathered some JB on an appropriatre sized bolt and stuck it in the hole. It held up for five years that way.

The down side of JB Weld, is that a lot of other Joe's like me have been using it. Like last year when I discovered that one of the spark plug holes in my bike was stripped and the previous owner had JB Welded the plug into the hole. :woohoo:
Had to fix that with an insert.

If you decide you want to make a strong epoxy repair and are using TWO PART epoxy (not the putty), buy some stuff called Mortite at the hardware store. It is essentially clay sold in strip rolls used by folks wanting to make a dam easily that the epoxy can be poured into. I used to use Mortite when pouring faces on old wooden golf clubs. Anyway, you can easily shape the clay and epoxy doesn't stick to it... the clay sticks to metal (and wood) surfaces nicely making it an excellent material to make a dam with. You pour and then once the epoxy sets up, just peel the Mortite off... you can actually reuse it. It is easy to make the proper shape if you are doing sort of an awkward shaped piece pour.

The stuff worked great !!

Along the bottom, front and top, there was about 4 sqare inches of block hammered off. It is just possible to see from the picture where the repair is. JB-Weld gets my gratitude.

Skyman wrote: Here is the "before" picture of my cylinder block:

Skyman, did you use JB Weld to glue the aluminum fin back on or did you shape the JB Weld to look like the aluminum fin?

I got drunk one night and stupidly started playing around with the bike. For some reason, not sure still, I wanted to see something around the intakes on the old Kerker I have on her. Anyways, I loosened one of the bolts holding #1 exhaust to the engine. Neighbor girl calls me over and I forget about it. Coupla days later I was running an errand and I was hearing this perfectly timed hiss comming from in between my legs. WTF? Luckily, one of my good friends is an old racer from the 70's early 80's and can be plied with a few beers. He figures it out pretty quick with a stethascope rigged up for just such matters. He was also my mechanic back then thank god, man's a genious on bikes. We pulled the pipes, and sure enough, #1 had a crack on the the rim of the intake on the Kerker. Had a semi-circular piece of the pipe break off, most likely to bad installation, or heat related because of my drunken loosening of the bolt holding it there (idiot). We JB'd it. At the time I was pretty damn sure- and so was he- that this wasn't going to work. I can weld but I didn't have a way to do it and at that time, no ca$h really. Damn if it didn't work perfectly. Still riding w/o a problem there. After that, my other good buddy wiped out pretty good one night and cracked his case (Honda POS) I told him you can JB it because welding it wasn't going to work (metals issue there). It holds the oil pressure just fine and cosmetically it looks good. Boom! He's still riding it, 3 years later. I am a believer if you prep it right. JB weld is good stuff.

I myself use the stuff that we used in the military. I used it on quite a few Phantoms, C-130s and Huies. It is called METALSET A4 made by Smooth-On Instead of being iron filed like JB Weld, it is filled with Titanium and Aluminum. I used it on my lower case on my 1300 when I rubbed threw it and the side cover during a racing season back in 1980. I noticed oil running out of a hole after a race. I built it up and it has been holding ever since. I have used it to glue together two stroke model airplane engines after crashes and they hold together in-definetly.

To Kapahulus question, I don't think Skyman has posted in a while. But it looks to me like the original pieces were long gone. And the way I would do it, is to wedge a wax paper covers popsickle stick under the fins, fill up the area with JBWeld, let it set up, then file it down to match. The spray paint it.