I'm doing a clutch job on my car and I noticed that inside of the bell housing of the transmission seems to have stress fractures in the aluminum. I've seen on the forum that some people even had huge pieces of their transmission coming off and basically killing the tranny. I dont know how deep the fractures go and whether it would be a problem, but I'm curious if anyone has seen this when doing their own clutches. Also is their any compound used to help seal these fractures in aluminum?

 

Pictures would be helpful. JB weld aluminum, that may help but you must get the aluminum perfectly clean first in order for the bond to hold. best start pricing junk yards

 

are the bellhousing "walls" supposed to be totally smooth i kinda remember
seeing raised ripples here and there

 

I'll take some pictures this weekend, I also bought some aluminum weld paste from harbor freight so hopefully it will do for now. There arent any holes in it yet but obviously its something to worry about. Probably hard to find a good VLSD 5spd nowadays.

 

Is it bad trans mounts that causes this?

 

possible but it could be poor casting.

 

do you have a strong light, like a work light. put it in the bell and see if you can see light, if you can then find a VLSD un less you know a good tig welder.

 

Actually I have the whole transmission out, the fractures are more towards the transmission end, where the spline comes out from. O btw, the tranny and engine mounts look okay for mileage and age of the car ('92 with 196k on the clock), so I doubt that caused the issues. I remember seeing on the board one member's tranny go where there is like a circular region, left of the spline towards the back of the transmission. This circular region just came off and the guy lost all his fuild and that tranny needed to be replaced, btw this circular region is part of the whole mold. So where ever I see the cracks I'll fill them, they may just be on the surface, I dont know if they could go all the way thru, and hope for all the best. I'll have some pictures at the end of the weekend, I'm in NYC and the car is in PA, so when I come back I can finally post something.

 

I wouldn't use any JB weld or any type of epoxy on it, I would definitely track down a competent welder to actually weld it for you with a High Frequency tig welder and some good 4043 filler wire. If you goop anything on there and it doesnt hold, someone will have a beotch of a time grinding it off to weld it later. Aluminum can be tricky to weld (especially certain types of cast) so be sure the person tackling it is a very capable welder, but It can be done. Best of luck!

 

Any good welders in PA or NYC out there that wants to help a .org member out?
When the clutch was starting to go on it I figured at the time it would be easier to just get another car so I got a Saab 900s, now since I'm done with grad school I'm trying to bring it back to life, it hasn't been on the road for a year but I go turn it on once a month, still purrs. So its mostly a hobby now to get it running, its not a dd.

 

RPM NYC...ask for Hogan.
They are located in Queens...queens village to be exact. Tell him i sent you.

DO NOT use JBWeld or any quick fixed.

IMO if you already dropped the tranny might as well buy a busted tranny from the JY and swap guts. you can even have the JY tranny case hot tanked and etc.

 

Are you certain they're actual fractures/cracks?

I've seen alot of transmission bell housings (mostly Hondas) have that "look" but they're not actual fractures they're just "designs" (for lack of a better word) in the aluminum from the casting process

You should really post pics to let us see before you go on potentially unnecessary ventures of swapping guts and/or welding

 

Okay guys, thanks for all the input, I wont be doing anything drastic this weekend. I'll take pictures and have them up on Sunday. I wont have a internet connection till then.

 

yea when i crusher103's tranny apart there was some stuff inside the trans case that LOOKED like cracks but it was actually just a result of the casting process. none of the machined surfaces had anything like that cuz the machining process smoothed it all out.

above the speed sensor and a little up-left of that too:


and where the flash is really bright:

 

Yep, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I would bet this is what the OP is seeing

Also, why'd you have that tranny apart?

 

OMG WTF that's some nasty *** fluid! Did he EVER change it? naaaaasty.

Yeah, the pics above are just from the sand casting process. they're not cracks at all.

there are indeed lots of lines on the cast part of the housings on these trannies. it's just simple leftovers from the casting process and nothing to worry about.

 

haha i dunno WHAT he did to it

reason i took it apart is cuz he damaged his VLSD splines by driving the car without seating the axle properly and it came out and chewed the teeth up. so i took greeny's diff and put it in crusher's case (cuz it's harder to find a VLSD VQ tranny). works fine now... i used royal purple for assembly and then crusher cheaped out and used Coastal for the rest..

 

Thanks CapedCadaver for the pictures, makes me feel better to know its normal, I'll take some pics just to compare. =)

 

I've seen this before as well it's no biggie....But if it's bothering and making feel insecure, take to a welder and install some strenghtening ribs or weld beads here and there lenght wise maybe at 4 locations on the exterior! Back in the day Ford's big block C6's were known for cracking transmission cases and that was the fix to add ribs and and beads. Good luck...If you spray the crack with parts cleaner on the exterior of the case did it soak thru the crack to the interior? If it doesn't soak thru it's not a crack!!!!

 

Okay so I took a second look at everything and it seems to look exactly like in the provided pictures, so I guess everything is okay. Thanks guys!