I am swapping one kind of blower to another and had to make a ghetto bracket over the weekend. I can use the one I made as a template and make another one from something better.

I don't know what kind of aluminum the original brackets were made from, and know nothing of metal strength. I made this bracket from and old piece of aluminum I had on the shelf that was a power tool accessory and it was fairly easy to cut with a high quality bosch metal jigsaw blade, and my friends high quality machining drill bits and press went through it like butter.

Currently this piece is slightly thinner than the original. It is about a 1/4 inch thick where the original was maybe 5/16 think. But the area of metal around each drilled hole is much greater than the original bracket which looked flimsy but is harder. The ghetto bracket feels really strong but is soft and you can chew at the edges and flake some off with a pliers, the original bracket does not flake, is harder and does not cut as easily with the saw.

I can't get the photo uploader to work on this board for some reason but I am curious to see what people would recommend for the aluminum grade to make a new bracket from and being able to weld aluminum to it is a must. But also even in the flimsiest form, should I be able to drive around for a couple days to get some parts with this quarter inch think bracket holding on a 20 pound blower on it? It currently is not making boost because their is no belt or torque on the blower, it is just held in place. You can put this aluminmum in a vice and whack at it with a hammer and it seems really strong, but I know nothing about tensile strength and rockwell hardness and stuff like that. Just dont want to find it is super brittle and go south on me on the freeway.

 

Aluminum in general is not brittle; ductility is common among all aluminum grades. The original bracket is likely just a 6061 that has been hard coat anodized. For your new bracket you could source a sheet of 6061 aluminum the same thickness as the original bracket, machine/weld it, then send it out to be hard coat anodized. You'll have to google search for local companies that do anodizing/oxidizing/etc. You will need to do all your machining/welding prior to anodizing. If anything is tight tolerance-wise (which it doesn't sound like it is) then remove about 2-5 thousandths excess to account for the anodized coating.

Your ghetto bracket should be fine for now. If you're worried about it then either don't beat on it, or remove the SC belt.

Edit - Just saw where you said the blower doesn't have the belt on it already. You are definitely fine then.

 

Thanks for the response.

John