Warped Bell housing

So how screwed am I? I got this bell housing for a trans swap and it had a small crack by right alignment pin hole. I really don't think it would of hurt anything, but my friend offered to tig it up for me just to be safe. Well stuff happens and it warped. Now I am sure it will pull back when tightened up but will it hurt anything? Like possibly throwing the alignment of the trans off?

My welder buddy has a piece of 1/4 inch steel over top of his entire workbench and 1.5" of wood under it, on that is the vice and of course a permanently attached ground lug to his machine....when he welds shit like that, he clamps it to the bench to stop warping/pulling....

shit, he even TIG'd up a entire LT1 modified manifold that is on my car for some 3-4? years, first shot, it worked....that poor manifold went through HELL with all the work done on it....

on that bell housing, I would clamp it to a piece of steel to pull it in straight, then heat with a torch to stress relieve it, right around the welded area...keep in mind that aluminum melts really easy, so that torch is plenty hot enough to melt it....so keep that torch moving....let cool in the air, NO WATER, I bet it comes back....sometimes you maybe want to heat it while applying the clamps a bit at a time depends on how much force you are doing on it...the heat radiated out of the weld, obviously so that is the stress center so heat the whole thing evenly around that spot....

:friends:

It's hard to tell from the pics how much it is out.
Fudging cast aluminum isn't easy, a little can be done as Gene said.

First the missing meat around the alignment dowel hole should be filled with tig,
then an attempt to press/straighten/stress releave,
then the tranny face should be mounted the the bellhousing face flycut parallel on a mill,
then the alignment hole indexed and cut, then mounted and indexed/centered on the engine to fit.

If you are paying for any of the mill work, it's probably not feasible.
The indexing for milling this can be time consuming alone.
You might be able to guess by using the right diameter end mill and follow the original radius if the hole.
Has to be pretty accurate.

010752 said:

It's hard to tell from the pics how much it is out.
Fudging cast aluminum isn't easy, a little can be done as Gene said.

First the missing meat around the alignment dowel hole should be filled with tig,
then an attempt to press/straighten/stress releave,
then the tranny face should be mounted the the bellhousing face flycut parallel on a mill,
then the alignment hole indexed and cut, then mounted and indexed/centered on the engine to fit.

If you are paying for any of the mill work, it's probably not feasible.
The indexing for milling this can be time consuming alone.
You might be able to guess by using the right diameter end mill and follow the original radius if the hole.
Has to be pretty accurate.

Click to expand...

:hissyfit: Uhhh, I didn't think about that above.....


shit can it.....find another housing, aluminum scrap ....

I guess I really didn't think the missing meat around the dowl pin hole would be that much of an issue and was just worried about the warp issue. I guess I will have to look around for another bellhousing.

Me, I would fill the bridge (not the hole) just for strength. The pin will still have 3/4 of a hole to fit. It's an aliment pin for assembly.
What does the pin really do after it's bolted....really nothing.

I would slowly heat like the others said when tightening to see if it will flush with out cracking. To do this is very delicate. With alu and going to hot..poof it is over. If you can get it to flush when tightened I would repeat the heat process again while tightened and always let cool on its own. The pin really is no longer an issue if you use it or not...just my view.

c-ya
ToddG :beer:

maybe it's a good opportunity to install a new scattershield.

Scattershield is slightly out of budget for now.

NO way would I use that....

redvetracr said:

NO way would I use that....

Click to expand...

Thats understandable, but for what reason? Is it the warp or the broken dowl hole that bothers you?

Well after looking at the bell housing more closely and hearing some of the thoughts on the housing I have decided to scrap it and get a different one. I was really hoping not to since this housing was only used a year or two. It would of allowed me to install a T5 using the factory manual linkage. Guess now I will just have to do a hydraulic clutch setup after all.

Thanks for the advice!

I was at a swap meet Sunday at the Lake County fair grounds and was telling a guy about your welded & warped bell housing (he used to do the trans for my racer) he mentioned he had an extra #621 bellhousing available.....if your interested send a PM.

Thank you very much for the offer, but I picked a bellhousing up on the way home from work last night.