My old man's been borrowing my '87 6.9 4spd 4x4 for a while a now. Now I got me a one way flight to drive my beast home from Spokane WA. Changing all the fluids today, I noticed what looked like a crack in the bell housing coming down off the large square hole for the throw out bearing forks. Sure enough, had my nephew step on the clutch, and the crack grew. Anyone else have this? I'm hoping I can just take it to a garage somewhere and have it ground out and welded back up. Maybe weld on a support or two. Otherwise, I'm guessing plan B is to find a new bell housing. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.

SchaefferUSMC

 

cast iron hard to weld they say, id just put a support strap across the crack and stop drill the end of the crack.

 

Get another bell housing from a junk yard. In order to weld that one correctly, you would have to remove it, sand blast it, flush the crack with acetone, and weld both sides of the crack. Even then, it would be a repair job. If you are going through all of that work, just get another one that isn't cracked.

 

Well, thanks for the insight, I'll see if I can find a replacement. This oughtta be fun.