Weld or braze?

alloy

alloy

Dan, Retired old fart
H-M Supporter Gold Member
Joined
Jul 5, 2014
Messages
2,772
I have the sheet metal housing off my power steering pump and I need to add a AN fitting to it for an extra drain line for my hydro boost brakes. The housing has been cleaned and bead blasted and I'm using an allen bolt to hold the fitting in place for welding.

The housing has been assembled with soldering I believe. The fitting is mild steel. Should this be welded or brazed?

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Yes that was why I was asking because of the thickness.

Just not after several hours of searching I found out a ps pump off a 2010 2500 yukon has hydro boost and the pump has provisions for 2 return lines. It's only $72 and in stock at autozone.

For the difficuly in welding it up and I want to get this fixed as soon as I can I'll just buy the new pump.

Dang I'm tired after doing all that searching, but it paid off.
 
Buy, and braze.

brazing is a great tool to have in the arsenal for classic car work, practice whenever you can.

John
 
You could TIG the joint, but due to the material thickness your TIG skills would have to be in the expert range otherwise silver solde,r as it's easier to control the heat and not blowing thru the base material
 
I have a guy that is definitely an expert tig welder but he's moving his shop and bought a home at the same time, so he has no definite time when he will be back doing work again.

I have never even tried to use silver solder. I don't have a torch setup now.

I've asked for recommendations here locally for people to weld, and I get replies from people and shops that they can do anything, no job too small and I send them pics and never hear from them again.

So I gave up and went to autozone and bought the ps pump with the extra return line on the housing. With tax and core charge cost me $100, but it fixed the problem. I really don't like where the extra return line is and how it sticks out of the housing. Comes out in a bad spot and the line I have running to it looks terrible where it is, but not choice. I have it on and everything is working. If I can get the fitting welded or soldered for the other housing I'll change the housing because of how ugly the line location looks.

Last thing I have to do with welding (other than the exhaust) is make up the rear wheel studs and have the nuts tack welded on. Manual Mac another member on here close to me has graciously offered to tack them on for me. I get the wheel spacers in tomorrow I hope and I can measure exactly how long I want the studs to be. Then I can set up a time to get them tacked on.
 
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Silver solder! Clean it. clean it, and clean it. Flux it well and solder. and BTW to remove the glass-like flux after soldering, put in boiling water for a few minutes.
Did a fair amount of repairs in the dairy industry. All stainless steel.
 
Just do not forget your silver soldered SS parts in the passivating solution overnight or you will have nice clean shiny SS parts ready to be silver soldered in the morning....

The pasivating solution will eat away every trace of the silver solder.....
 
Well guys I'm convinced that silver solder is the way to go, but not having a torch setup it ain't gonna happen. No one I've contacted even wants to touch it even trying to weld it, and I'm assuming silver soldering is more of a home shop old timer (like me) deal.

I'd really love to get this done and change out the new power steering pump because of how the return line is routed, but it is what it is for now. At least the car is running.

If anyone here can do it I'll send it to you and gladly pay you for your time.
 
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