I got the stock transfercase bolts in yesterday to replace the longer EK2 ones I had since I replaced the brace with a SS front and mid housing on my 5-speed. Last night I tightened up the bolts finger tight and started to torque them all down. One of the bolts didn't even make it to 63 ft-lbs before the ear broke off on the bell housing. Now the transfercase is held on by 4 of the 5 bolts. I'll have to get some pics of it this weekend. I don't know why it broke off. It could be from 17 y.o. fatigue of the aluminum, overtorque sometime in the life of the transmission, some other stress that caused a crack to propogate which only spread at the border of the grain, or something else. I did not see it coming and it almost makes me question the integrity of the rest of the transmission case.
I know the metal gets fatigued and is one reason why a lot of the 6-speed housings are cracking besides the large amount of power being put through them. My buddies' father-in-law has a big spool gun and can weld thick aluminum so I'll try that out. I may see if some brazing will work before that. I'd rather not heat up the material too much so it becomes brittle and just breaks at the edge of the weld. Anyone else that has busted an ear off their bell housing what did you do to fix it?
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