After my previous attempts at trying to fix the keyway on my landcruiser crank with devcon (plastic steel) I was at the point of ‘nothing to lose’ so I spoke to my mate Graeme about welding.

He is a machinist by trade and offered to come up and have a bit of a crack at it. I think we may have got it this time…

At first we were just going to weld the key in place, but Mase reckoned we could try and build up the crank so the key could still be removed.

It involved laying some weld along the damaged key way, grinding back, more weld, more grind and finishing off with a dremel.

The final result was really encouraging. I think we may have done it…

The key slotted in snugly, the balancer went back on and with loctite everywhere it will hopefully not need to come off for quite a while.

Here’s a few pics in case you ever find yourself in a similar dilemma

1. The damage 2. Progress 3. Finished

Now I have to say that Mase is not a ‘she’ll be right’ kinda guy (unlike me) so I reckon we have a pretty good chance of seeing this one stay together for a while…

I have no idea why the pics don’t line up… (click on them to see them a decent size)