Tiller Gearbox Cracked

[jbrumberg]

To All:
The gearbox on my Woods T-42 tiller sustained a ~3" hairline crack on the bottom third of the gearbox many years ago. Each spring and before all tilling I have to refill the gearbox with SAE 90 gear lube. I am amazed that this tiller still works. I am curious as to how I can best repair this crack. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you in advance for your responses. Jay

 

[RollTideRam]

Have you tried JB weld? JC

 

[jbrumberg]

JC: I never heard of JB Weld before. I did some online research and it appears that this epoxy will meet my needs. It's interesting because I completely resurfaced my boat below the waterline with epoxy 10 years ago and it is still holding up. I had always wondered if the "epoxy solution" would work- I'll give it a shot. Thank you. Jay

 

[john_bud]

The JB weld may work, if it does, the surfaces have to be absolutely free of all oil. That is a pretty high vibration environment too, which may make it fail in the future. Better solutions would be to have it silver soldered, brazed or welded with a nickle rod. It's cheapest to take the guts out of the box first, but a good shop would probably do the remove and replace too. While this may seem like a lot of extra work, to do the epoxy correctly, you should take the guts out too and completely degrease it too.

jb

 

[Wannafish]

You should drill a small hole at each end of the crack before repairing. This will keep the crack from cracking further.

 

[Nasty135]

You could also Braze it if you have the oxygen & Actelyne torch setup, As stated by previous poster drilling holes at the end of crack will stop further cracking and just need filled in with brazing rod...

 

[Soundguy]

If you can disassemble the box, ad clean it.. I'd silver solder or braze it.. or jbweld it from the inside.. should work fine..

Has to be 100% clean for any of that to work. Might want to drill 2 small stop holes.. one at each end of the crack.. use the smallest drill you can find... make sure to fill those holes with a good slather if you jbweld it.. etc.. check for gear clearance too..

Soundguy

 

[jbrumberg]

John, Rick, Mark, & Chris: Thank you for your informative input. I will start with the JB Weld with "drill points" and see what happens. Jay