Recent content by 59 Sons

No physical damage to the tube. Completely protected. My theory is an impurity that got stretched around a bend.

An old friend of mine used to lock her keys in the car so often that she started keeping an extra coat hanger safely locked in her trunk. 🤔😏

Silver patch is holding.

Runs from the pump on the right hand side of the motor, then down under the flat plate, then back up again under the seat to the main valve. Basically 3 ft long and u-shaped. Even with the flat plates loose and all of the clamps removed, I only got about an inch and a half of movement. Took an...

It would have been a good option except a space constraints eliminated any place I could have put a compression fitting. No place I could have got wrenches on it. I ended up patching it with silver. See the thread "Can you braze a hydraulic line?"

I guess I can see how the wire wrap would be beneficial if there is a split in the tube.

I'm trying to imagine the function of the wire wrap. Is it supposed to reinforce the silver? Silver makes such a good patch because of its flexibility. It can handle the expansion and contraction of the steel pipe without cracking. That's why we use a higher silver brazing rod on dissimilar...

Okay, I cleaned off some of the flux and did a full warm up on the tractor and tested the highest pressure functions. Everything looks good. No seepage at all. I like that you can see how the flux cleaned the pipe and floated all the impurities to the top of the silver. I guess it's time to put...

It's ugly as sin, but it appears to be holding. It got dark on me so I will know better in the morning when I can test more tractor functions.

Regarding the issue of overheating the steel tube, my silver rod melts well below 1500° so the tube never even got to dull Cherry. It just barely got shiny.

So I blasted out the line with nitrogen, knowing full well that I was not going to get all of it out because the tube has a deep belly in it. I was nervous about using a solvent, because I wasn't certain I could get the solvent out of the tube and that seemed more problematic than leaving some...

OK. So I dremeled off the epoxy and sanded back down to clean steel. I think my description of the leak might have been misleading. I wouldn't call it a split as I have seen tubing split at the annealing line. It might be more of a crack, or even just an impurity point that got stretched around...

I am a refrigeration tech so I will be applying my practices and tools to this. I will be using an air acetylene turbo torch with a rosebud about the size of your thumb nail. I usually have no problem doing up to inch and an eighth copper with an MC tank. Most of my experience with steel is...

It's definitely not going to be fun.

By the way, just to eliminate any confusion. I have the tube disconnected at both ends. It will move an inch or so but it is about 4 ft long with compound bends and angled sections on both ends.