Question. For Chris carson

[buzmacdowell]

When repairing (welding) a 2.4 with crake in cylinder wall do you preheat the block? And is it worth all the effort & $? I have had a lot of repairs done to early aluminum BBChevy Arias hemi motors and they worked good after....but they were always preheated to a certain temp then welded.

[25two.stroke]

Pretty sure Chris is out of town right now for a week or more. Not sure if he's going to be looking at this. I think hes a computer kinda guy not a smartphone browsing screamandfly guy...if I'm right he won't be back on here till he gets back to his shop. Preheating vs not on mercury's cast aluminum is a controversial topic. Chaz on here can probably tell you what to do and what filler to use. The problem is Mercury's tin can aluminum that has more soda pop in it than actual aluminum. Start welding on it and all the sudden theres no metal there at all. It all melts away like lava. Not sure if the Hemi motors you welded on were cast better...they probably were.

[derekfl]

I have a 90 2.4 powerhead needs sleeves if less daunting than welding. About 1k to do all 6. SW Florida. Block is cheap. I would scrap it for 15 bucks but then somebody will want it. Scrapped a 95 and 2 days later a guy wanted it for port mapping.

[Aaronhl]

well from my limited aluminum welding experience (mig) if you are referring to the blocks, it is almost impossible to weld aluminum without preheating

[derekfl]

And generally if something popped and drove thru the block the impact was enough to throw things out of square. There are 2.4’s around me with good compression for reasonable money, but smart money buys a 2.5 instead, which are also around here on the west coast of the east coast.