I have a generator I got for $99 on black friday. I know that it's a cheap pos, but with some tweaks (name brand spark plug) and threadlock, they have been proven to last for years. I was going over the unit and noticed everything, I mean everything was loose on the unit. So I took out the manual and torqued down the bolts to spec. Big mistake. It seems the unit's aluminum casing is so thin, they were intentionally not tightening too much. You guessed it, I cracked the aluminum. The part that is cracked is surrounding the bottom bolt hole (of three) that joins the cover on the stator. It hasn't broken off, but cracked about 70% of the way around the bolt area, in a circular fashion. I have JB epoxy welded it, it's curing atm. I then used blue locktite on the other bolts. The distance hasn't shifted, still 2 inch 2/16ths (sorry metric people) at all points. You think JB weld is good enough or should I braze or weld it? It's a non moving part.
if you cleand the surfaces before you aplied the epoxy should be ok. or you can do this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq0wfU4ZaKk and then this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIKY--USk7Y
Generator is/was sold on amazon, called pulsar. Crawls out of the same factory as the harbor freight ones. I got it because the harbor freight ones are 800W peak, this one is 1200W peak.
If you don't have a tig, I'd try low temp aluminum welding rods like this (You can use map or propane torch to weld): http://www.harborfreight.com/8-piece-low-temperature-aluminum-welding-rods-44810.html I've used this before on thin stuff. Now cast aluminum can be a different beast, since there are pits, oil and other bs likes to get impregnated in it. So before you weld you need to make sure its super clean.
