Broken Briggs Inlet Manifold - Anyone tried Alarldite?

by **rogerf** » Fri Nov 22, 2013 4:18 am

Hallo folks,

I'm working on a twelve year old mower for my neighbour which was surging badly. I agreed to have a look at for him as understandably he didn't want to spend a lot on it. The engine serial # is 10A902 2143 B1 01080954.

Apart from very low and very dirty oil :bricks:

(more reason not to spend a lot!) I found that the inlet manifold was broken into two close to where it bolts onto the engine. In my view the likely cause of the damage was that the front tank mounting bolt had been absent for some time, it was eventually replaced by an undersized hex cap screw and nut. I'm guessing that the full weight of the fuel tank was being passed up the inlet manifold along with a lot of vibration until it protested by breaking.

I tried to find a replacement inlet manifold locally, but the only ones available had the wrong angle of tube to mounting bolts. I've glued the bits together with 5 minute Araldite and left it to cure overnight before trying out the repaired part.

Has anyone tried repairing this part with Araldite before? If so did the 'repair' withstand the engine being started and run? I'm just trying to see if the engine will run reasonably without a massive air leak before worrying about having a part ordered in. (I reckon the inlet manifold has the part number 693446 as according to my reading of the serial number the build date is before 03080400.)

Looking forward to knowing if I should re-assemble with the glued up inlet manifold and if so what "mileage" might result. (Guess I don't have much to lose

)

Cheers,
Roger

I haven't noticed that particular brand of product around central illinois, but I believe it would work. And quite frankly, if it did, I would probably leave it that way until it failed (if)! So long as the neighbor had the understanding of what I was doing. Whats he got to lose? I have used similiar products, can be very tough, and that is marked as structural and impervious to organic compounds. As long as you mount the tank properly, you are probably good to go.

by **wristpin** » Fri Nov 22, 2013 10:21 am

As has been said, so long as the tank is now properly secured it should be OK although I would have chosen a more flexible adhesive such as Loctite Multibond but, with the cost constraints mentioned, only if I had some around and didn't have to buy it in just for that job.

by **bgsengine** » Fri Nov 22, 2013 11:43 am

I agree with the rest - never heard of Alardite, but have seen many "patch jobs" on those tubes that have varying degrees of success in how long they last - as long as they maintain an air tight connection between the carburetor and then intake port, I have no problem with "patching" one up, if a new one is not available and it MUST be fixed ASAP. Keeping in mind that those crossover tubes are quite cheap at around 9 to 12 bucks or so, for a pro shop to "patch" one up like that is just shameful... but if a homeowner or hobbyist with time on their hands chooses to do so, I see no real problem as long as it works.

by **fixer5000** » Fri Nov 22, 2013 3:47 pm

araldite is a japanese made 2 part epoxy gents

by **bgsengine** » Fri Nov 22, 2013 4:14 pm

Ahh.. About like the Hysol (U.S.A. Made! :usa:

'bout 40 miles down the road from us over the border in N.Y. - or it used to be.. ) Epoxi-Patch we use..

by **wristpin** » Fri Nov 22, 2013 5:02 pm

fixer5000 wrote:araldite is a japanese made 2 part epoxy gents

Araldite was initially developed by a Swiss company but was licensed to and marketed by CIBA-GEIGY in Cambridge, United Kingdom and subsequently marketed by Huntsman Advanced Adhesives. Don't think that the Japanese had anything to do with it but may make/sell it under licence.

by **rogerf** » Fri Nov 22, 2013 9:12 pm

Hallo again

Well it worked fine

Thank you for your words of encouragement.

I'm a bit embarrassed by my bad-spelling keyboard - guess it comes with the cheap notebook :oops:

.It should of course been Araldite in the heading as well as the text. Must buy a better computer next time :lol:

When I put back the repaired inlet manifold it fired right up and ran smoothly. It was a tad fast for my liking 3900 to 3950, so based on the cutter blade diameter I dropped the speed down a little to 3800rpm. I had to add my used oil (much cleaer than the "tar" in the engine and ran it for about 15 minutes. Then I did an oil change with fresh oil.

I'll tell the neighbour to bring it back for another change after he's run it a couple of times. He did ask me how do you change the oil on these!

Roger

by **wristpin** » Sat Nov 23, 2013 7:18 am

Think that your 3800 rpm is still too fast. Most BS engines on 19" rotary mowers leave the factory set at around 2800 although some of this is to keep within the noise regs. This can be safely raised to get the machine to perform better particularly if fitted with grass collection but I would not go higher than 3300 or the machine will be excessively noisy and drink fuel.

by **rogerf** » Sat Nov 23, 2013 6:35 pm

Hallo

Thanks for the comment on the speed issue. I'd love to have had the original specs available :!:

Unfortunately all I had to go on was the maximum s quoted on page 28 section 5 of the flat head manual (it's an 18" mower). I do realise that these are maximums, but in the absence of anything better I wanted to make sure it was safe without altering anything too much.

Speed data seems very hard to find. :roll: