A spin off to the fixing an ac line with JB weld thread.
What have you fixed with it?
Gas tanks were the big one for me. Smear it on pinholed areas after a good cleaning with the intention of it being a temp fix. 5 years later and I pulled the tank for a fuel pump and I was like I think I should probably pony up for a new tank. But I did not. Sold the car with complete disclosure of the fix after the motor popped.
I lost track of how many tanks I "fixed" that way.
Radiator on the Mustang has had a pinhole for... 16 years? I slathered some JB on it 15.75 years ago.
Er, do not fix an AMC 304s exhaust manifold with some...it's like welding galvy steel. /puke
Preface: I am the opposite of proud for of this.
I worked at a junkyard. A guy had a Nissan truck that he had had said junkyard put a used engine in. Twice, maybe more, he had failed to get through his 30 day warranty period, and the owners were not enjoying the idea of being on the hook. So, they gave it to me. I found a void in the block between cylinders 2 and 3, that had made other people's attempts at new head gaskets fail.
I welded the void in the cast iron block(stick welder, high nickel, etc), finishing with JB weld, and made it chooch. The guy made it through his 30 day warranty, and I quit.
In reply to wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) :
I did the same thing with my uncle's 3.0L in his boat when he forgot to drain the block one winter. He fired it up and the water was squirting everywhere. I used a whole cylinder of the putty-type JB just working it into the cracks. That was 15 years ago? Still running.
I fixed a hole in my aluminum boat. I was running in some muddy water on a river and didn't know there was an old collapsed bridge under water. I didn't hit it fast, but a spike of rebar poked right up through the hull. I just saw it out of the corner of my eye. I pounded the aluminum flat and filled the hole.
I used it to fix the governor in the Briggs V-twin in my tractor.
Those engines had a habit of seizing the governor sprocket to the shaft. To make matters worse, the steel shaft was pressed into the aluminum block, so the shaft would come out of the block and damage the shaft bore in the process.
I cleaned up the shaft and the block, then used JB weld to hold the shaft in place. After it cured I installed a new gear and reassembled.
The governor has held up for 11 years that way. There have been broken pushrods and other issues since then, but so far the JB weld is holding up.
edit: anexample of the type of damage
The radiator on the Abomination when it failed on day one of a 2 day event.
Corrosion at the head gasket mating surface on a 85hp Johnson outboard. That one was a Hail Mary that actually worked.
Wasn't there a drag engine builder who filled the head bolt holes with JB and redrilled for his own heads?
An AC line.
Dog zapper remote
Just remembered, also did the plastic end tank on my truck. Had a minor crack, drilled the ends of it with a 1/8th" drill and then scuffed it real well and poured it on. Lasted for 8 years while losing a gallon every 15k or so. It later blew absolutely spectacularly.
Fixed the bellcranks on my RC10T. Mew MIP ball bearing bellcranks had a ball stud tear out because of piss poor driving. No replacement parts, you have to re-buy the whole kit. $25 was a ton of money to a kid in 1992.
So I flopped a blob on the end of the broken part and stuffed a new ball stud in the mangled hole.
Was still on there when I sold it 10 years later.
An engine block. 25+ years ago I was at an Oldsmobile dealer and we had a customer who had an oil leak. It was a porous block that had taken some time to show itself. It was just out of warranty and the customer was rather particular. There's no way the customer was going to pay for a block on this new of a car and the Olds rep was not going to do it unless the customer came up with a decent amount as a deductible. I spoke with the tech and we decided what the heck, lets try it. We ground down the block, cleaned it with brake clean, then spread out a nice layer of JB Weld. The area of the patch was maybe 2" x 3". While still wet, I pressed in a fiberglass mat into the JB. Added a little more on top and that was it. The customer was a regular and and we watched that for a few years with it holding perfectly.
JB Weld fixes canoe holes too.
I bought a side-by-side that was on the super cheap end of the spectrum, as it had a few different problems. One of those problems was a diff plug bung that had been snapped. I used a combination of some kind of bung extension piece (it was actually an O2 sensor bung extender, as it used the same threads), standard JB and the JB putty. Its been working great for about a year so far.
I've done steel oil pans with some minor rust issues and a gas tank that has rotted where brackets were welded on at the factory.
I've also repaired the 1/8 npt threaded oil pressure sensor fitting on the head of my Subaru EJ253 that I stupidly overtightened and cracked when the sensor failed and started leaking. Why is there anything npt on a Subaru??? A year plus later and still no leaks.
VR6 Passat PCV valve. The vacuum port nipple broke off. But of course you have to buy the whole snorkus assembly ($$$) with hoses to replace it. I found a similar size hose nipple in my pile of junk and glommed a big hunk of JB Weld putty on it. Worked well enough to pass emissions that year.
Subaru EA82 engine intake manifold. The intake on my 1993 Subaru Loyale developed a coolant leak from a crack, and EA82 intake manifolds don't exactly grow on trees these days. So I took it off (which took less than an hour, gosh that car was a breeze to work on) and cleaned up the cracked area and worked JB Weld into it. It ran for another two or three years like that until I retired the car.
A stripped front wheel stud on my SpecRX7 race car at SCCA Regional race in 1999 at Road America. Noticed it on late Saturday after qualifying, made the repair and went out on Sunday morning. It held and I was P1 in class.
Son's headset. Works for small jobs too.
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