Doing some preliminary work on my next rebuild, my new 'Big Squirt' (followers on Facebook may be familiar with the Dirt Squirt I bought only to find out it is a red painted Wombat with 19"/17" wheels, hence Big Squirt). It hasn't been looked after as well as I thought my old mate Ron would have looked after it, I think there was some useless son issues with maintenance, or lack of!
The gear selector has had some stomping of gears over the years, I have discovered the crack shown in the photos, the bronze bush was not located by the shifter arm pin as it should thus it was moving around and loose. A replacement side cover is going to be hard to find here in Australia so I hope I can do some temporary but long lasting repair.
Do you fella's reckon something like J.B. Weld or some such will fix this up, I'll grind the cracks out and get some nice clean metal to bond to.
Bernzomatic has some aluminum brazing rods for $5 here in the US.
750 degrees F is their claim for brazing temp.
A mapp gas torch might do that.
If you have one of those mapp gas torches you'll be out the 5 if it doesn't work.
If you don't have one it's a nice excuse to get one for the tool box. They are pretty nice to have.
You might want to check with California Hodaka and see if they can fix that case for you. They do amazing work on shifter covers and it would be fixed better than new (including rebuilding and replacement of any internal parts needed). I know you are in Australia, but as you say, there probable aren't many available there. Just a thought.
