Front cover

[Douglas Alderson]

The nose of the casting on my engine has suffered over the years & quite a large chunk at the end (about 5-8 o'clock & an inch) is no longer there! Clearly the starting handle has been rattling up & down. Unsurprisingly there is significant wear on the starting handle shaft as well.
I am not minded to find a replacement cover & think this Jmust be a well known problem...is there a "fix"? I am thinking of fitting a bush/sleeve over the handle shaft & fitting it into the nose of the cover. Maybe made from a hard plastic polybush?. The car starts well on the motor, so I don't anticipate lots of winding in future. I am more concerned to stop the handle shaft rattling about.
The bush would be quite thin as the gap from shaft o/d to cover i/d is "only!" about .030" (variable!). I recall seeing "steel tubes" from somewhere that might be to solve this one, but cannot find them...do they work? I don't want to have to machine the components unless I have to. My plan is a to just find a "fix" at this stage.

Hi It is possible to fix with aluminium welding/brazing rods by putting the starting handle in the end and heating up and filling the gap.  But there is a fine balance between melting the nose cone and fixing the hole. Or another way is an oilite bush put in a shorten damaged ruby nose cone.