Water pump propeler repair

[antonio costa]

Well I guess this one fit's in here, since it's engine related. I friend of mine rebuilding a water pump from a really old and big diesel driven generator (apparently it's usual too rebuild those, new bearings,seal and so on) broke with at removal. Well the generator needed to be running monday morning at 7 am, that's why he was doing the job on a saturday so he called me up to see if I could weld it up.
I really hate to weld this kind of unknown old rusty cast things , well to be fair I hate cast iron repairs.
I checked and I was out of silicon bronze and also nickel rods so the only option from what I had was the good ole 312.
Cleaned the cast the best I could around the crack, pre-heated to about 350ºC (the first picture is right after the pre heat), welded it up both sides and did controled cooling in sand and inside a oven that I use just for this kind of things that heats up to 250ºC , and I slowly reduce the the temp of the oven over the time. In the total 2hours of post weld slow cooling. He helped me by grinding it up after the cooling and checked for cracks. It was one of the dirtiest cast parts I've seen, a pain to weld, always sputering, although it didn't crack it's the worst looking cast repair I've ever done . I did't take as many pictures as I wanted because all the time the part was of the oven I was in a hurry to finish it so that my friend could finish the rebuild today and enjoy the sunday

 

[Pete.]

Good job!. I would not have been confident to repair that, but I would have made a new one from steel in a few hours.

 

[antonio costa]

Thanks mate, once you've done quite a few cast iron repair jobs you start to get confident.
I thought of that, not me doing it , but a good friend of mine that has machine shop , out of luck he's out for a weekend with the family so the only option we had was really to weld it up.
It's great to have the skills to make a new one kind quickly :-).

I used the incorrect term it's not a propeler but an impeler.

 

[Digger6135]

It's not a propeler or impeler it's a Impeller.

Digger6135

 

[carbon]

Nice looking repair

 

[66-V8]

It's not a propeler or impeler it's a Impeller.

Digger6135

Actually, it's 'it's an impeller.'

 

[Istayinalot]

Nice job, you did well to get it back together.

 

[kier]

nice job
I did one a few years ago off a big track machine a new pump was £500 plus from the dealers, only gave 600 for the 15ton machine two years before , bought a repair kit for a international tractor similar engine but broke the housing where the seal sits and had to weld it together , I did heat it first but just let it cool on its own, anyway about ten years later its still good, but im not a professional

 

[antonio costa]

Thanks everyone for the comments. It isn't a nice repair, it was what was possible at the time. If I wasn't out of silicone bronze rods I would probably have tig brazed it.
Kier, if it's still holding after 10 years you did great. At the end of the day what matter most is to solve the problem. And to be fair I see on this forum amazing job's done by amateurs and everyday I come across really crappy jobs done by so called professionals.

Thanks for the spelling corrections, I really appreciate it, there is no better way to keep learning and improving:-).

 

[octo0072000]

Thanks everyone for the comments. It isn't a nice repair, it was what was possible at the time. If I wasn't out of silicone bronze rods I would probably have tig brazed it.
Kier, if it's still holding after 10 years you did great. At the end of the day what matter most is to solve the problem. And to be fair I see on this forum amazing job's done by amateurs and everyday I come across really crappy jobs done by so called professionals.

Thanks for the spelling corrections, I really appreciate it, there is no better way to keep learning and improving:-).

most of us do understand that your first language is not English