Eddie (Flying Dutchman),

If you want to try and salvage your existing base and improve the floor of the socket, here are my suggestions for you:

First, simply grinding the protrusion will be difficult (as you have stated), but drilling it to below grade might be easy. Start with a small drill bit suitable for stainless steel (I use cobalt and zirconium bits) and carefully drill down into the very center of the protrusion - try not to drill down any more than necessary below the grade of the socket. Then proceed to much larger drill bits - or conical grinding bits - untill you end up with what would appear as a shallow countersunk depression where the protrusion previously was.

After this, clean out all contaminants from the socket. Use a degreaser/dewaxer/silicon remover. Any autobody shop may be willing give you a few ounces of this type of solvent for a couple bucks, otherwise its about 40 bucks a gallon - or more. Then mix up some JB-WELD (its a metal epoxy and VERY durable) and apply that to fill the voids and rebuild a nice looking socket. This will be easy to do with JBWeld - widely available.

JBweld is incredible stuff for this kind of high-wear, void filling application. It has wear resistance that is probably second to none for an epoxy filler. I have first-hand experience repairing a dime-size hole that went right through the cylinder wall of a 60hp engine... That was 12 years ago and the repair is still going today. I also used JBWeld when I had to drill out a badly damaged sparkplug thread. I then re-coated the cylinder head with JBWeld and retapped it. That repair is still going too.

What JBWeld does not tolerate very well is flex, or direct impact - it is relatively brittle.

I am fairly confident that when you properly decontaminate the bonding surfaces, the voids in the socket can then be dressed with JBWeld and be expected to hold up to the wear and tear. However, I`d very much recommend a proper teflon mast bearing at all times in the future to protect those surfaces.


Dave