Surelock Information

We do repairs to mostly pre-war and vintage racing cars. Metal stitching is a mechanical process that requires no heat and permits repairs to the engine components without creating distortion at the repair site. Its possible to do the repair in situ or as a complete engine on my bench. This leads to shorter downtime and a minimum of strip-down to a running engine. Surelock Casting Repairs was founded in 1966 when my father, Beville Hood, along with other engineers, developed the (cold) metal stitching process. Bev's skills as a tool maker and machinist, combined with his understanding of metals, made him perfectly suited for perfecting this new form of cast iron repair. The need that drove the development of this form of metal repair is the problem that is inherent in welding older cast iron. People often tell us that their local welder can repair the damaged engine part. It's unlikely to be successful because the nature of the pre-war metals don't lend themselves to welded repairs. This is mostly because the carbon and impurities in the earlier metals change when extreme heat is applied. Tensile strength at the repair site is different after the weld and this leads to more post-repair cracking. In the end a larger and more expensive repair has to be carried out by Surelock to remove and replace the weld with a stitched repair, (if indeed the part can still be repaired at all). This can be prevented with a quick call to Surelock. Feel free to take a picture and send us an email and I can offer you an opinion based on 35 years of work.