Technical Welding a crank pulley

I pulled my '51 Mercury engine out of storage last week in preparation to putting it on my test stand to see if it runs as good as I remember. When I pulled it out, I saw that the crank pulley had a chunk broken out of it. I just missed one on e?ay, so I am wondering ; "Can this be fixed?" Are these cast steel or cast Iron? Could I cut and grind a chunk of metal and weld or braze it in? (I don't have the broken chunk.) Has anyone ever done this? I'm retired, so I have the time, and I kind of like fiddling with stuff like this. Any suggestions or opinions are welcome. I think I may have another one like this in a box somewhere as well.

 

Probably fixable (anything is) but not worth the effort. Keep in mind that once you weld it, the pulley will no longer be balanced which will be bad when the engine is at speed. Easier to replace and put your labor into other places on the engine.
It's an unusual form of damage. I'd be concerned that the chip was a result of the engine being dropped at one point and possible harm to the crank.

 

You're kidding, right?
They are easy to find and relatively inexpensive. Actually you could radius the busted edges and run it if you had to...

 

eBay item number:
141480240256
Your pulley is the cast version and would take pre-heating and a special welding rod to repair..

 

$129.99? I'll keep looking, but pre-heating and special rod don't scare me.

 

After its welded, what are you going to do for the balancing? Last time I checked, the nickel rod was about $10 a stick, they came 3 sticks to a pack, and your probably going to need several sticks if you plan on building that area up with welding rod. There will be a lot of time used up to make that missing section with rod. Then don't forget the grind time to dress it back into shape and its still probably going to be out of balance. I run a welding shop, I'd buy the e bay pulley. Gene

 

Can anyone answer my initial question; are these cast iron or cast steel? I have a book that shows how to determine this by hitting the piece with a grinder, but I thought someone might know, because I ain't too good at reading sparks.

 

Cast Iron

 

If you could find another one that is broken then cut the peace out of it and braze it in yours.

 

I used Ni-99 rod to repair one. Tig welded it withNo issues at all with a light pre heat-post heat. Any machine shop could spin it on their balancer for a few bucks but with the operation range of a flat head and the factory balancing what it is,why bother.

 

Pm me, I may have one

 

Put the balancer in a lathe and cut the first sheave off?

 

Do you need that rib? spin it in a lathe and cut it off. Id do that before welding it back up.
Itll take you close to that 130 bucks by the time you count rod and time

 

There's better battles to choose.

 

Later car flatheads need it to run both water pumps correctly. My time is free; if rods are 3 for $10, like somebody said above, economics don't really come into play on this.

Gary, thanks for your post; I'm going to go ahead with this. If I fail, I'll just toss the pulley, and the experience should be worth at least $10.

 

Cast iron or steel you can still cut and weld or braze a piece of mild steel in there. I am going to guess it is cast iron, a simple test take a small drill bit and drill a hole in it, cast iron will come out in charcoal gray dust and your bit will stay cool dry, cast steel is harder and your chips will come out as chips and you'll need to oil it to keep the bit cool.

if it turns out to be cast iron there is some really neat rod for welding it. let me know and I'll get you the numbers on it. it is way easier than nirod. It is a little pricey and many welding supply houses will sell it by the rod if you can't find it that way I'll try and snipe you a couple of sticks from a friend.

Note: this is a tubman offer and if you don't know for a fact that we are friends leave me the hell alone.

 

Thanks Beaner. I'll try not to take you up on your offer, but if I can't find some elsewhere, I may be back. I have spent the last hour watching videos on YouTube on the subject and there is a lot of information out there and more than one way to go about it. The more I learn, the more possible this looks. Thanks for the drill tip.

 

Before you waste any time repairing the pulley, clean it up and check for cracking along the crank snout, as a couple of mine were. These pulleys were on all '50-'53 Ford and Mercury V8 cars, so they are not rare or expensive.

 

Bob,

Thanks for the tip; I hadn't considered that. It's getting to the point where "they are not rare or expensive" only if you can find one.

Tubman

 

We have a half dozen or so all baked and blasted, ready to go.

http://www.vanpeltsales.com/FH_web/engine-partsprices-pg2.htm

They go as 8BA-6312-C

 

Way good on you Beaner. I know that I could have clicked that worthless "like" button but this deserves a real like.

 

i am not picking a fight but, why the hell is it every time someone wants to spend his time and money on something you wouldn't do, you say go buy another one? how in the world did you ever learn how to work on cars?

 

Thanks man. Tubman is good people who wouldn't try and lend him a hand.

I don't think you are picking a fight at all. Sometimes it is way easier to replace a part then to repair it but you are absolutely correct, sometimes the journey is worth way more then the price of admission and learning a skill that you thought was out of reach is worth a lot.

 

Even if this doesn't work out (though I think it will), the journey through You-Tube was very rewarding. There are new materials and techniques there that I had no idea existed. Even if I find a reasonably priced pulley, I'm gonna get some of these new rods just to experiment with. Hobart has a new lower-priced cast iron rod that looks particularly promising. Thanks for all the help, fellas!

 

You should be fine but just don't stand inline with it when you fire it up.

 

Hopefully Tubman is the only one winging it!
Determination wins.

 

I'm all for fixing things, but some things I wouldn't mess with for safety reasons. I wouldn't weld a pulley or a fan. I wouldn't weld up a brake drum or spindle.

 

hey beaner! I need some FREE stuff also....can you ship to my house?

All joking aside, nice offer

 

Then just shape and braze a piece in there(of mild steel) and have a machinist true it up. I would not be worried about the balance issue as this engine is apparently not a 6 or 7000 rpm application.