welding aluminum

so, i know basically nothing about aluminum. what i need to do is cut the bottom off of two toyota shifter arms, and weld the bottom of one to the other. i want to use the stick from a W58 supra on my W50 tranny in my 78 pickup. im not sure what type of aluminum they are. its just a round rod about 3/4" in diameter. cutting it wont be an issue, im just wondering about welding it back together. i know to bevel in the edges so it doesnt get bulkier where it shouldnt (its a shifter, lol). would a 110v wirefeed thats setup for steel work? im pretty sure it wouldnt, but thought id ask. my buddy has another welder but i dont know anything about it. he says it can tig alum. but he hasnt used it enough to be any good. any info you have would be awesome. thanks max.

just pay someone locally to weld it, cut it all and have it ready for welding i couldnt see them charging you much.

i thought about it. but i dunno if i could get it set just where i like it and then keep it that way to not tack it in the truck. its worth a shot i guess. i just like doing stuff my self. maybe ill mess with the tig and do it up.

im no expert either. but the wire used for welding aluminum breaks easily, so they make spool guns to attach to your welder that holds the spool of wire right at the torch. if you got that setup, changed to 100% argon(i think?), you could weld it up yourself with a little practice since you have welding experience.

You should be able to buy aluminum wires for your mig. Best option would be to use Tig with plenty of filler wire. If you just try to melt the pieces together you can watch it crack out as soon as you stop welding. Never tried the 110v wire fed method on aluminum so I can't say for sure. I think that's only used for thin sheet like aluminum.

Aluminum welds are ALWAYS weak. What's worse is that you are talking about welding to a cast part that is going to see a lot of abuse. I don't think that I would suggest welding that part up without having it heatreated afterwords. You're just asking for problems.

THE SHIFTERS ARE ALUMINUM? I DIDNT NOTICE, AND I WELDED MINE WITH FLUX CORE STEEL WIRE. IT WORKED GOOD I JUST CUT THE END OFF AND ELDED A KNIFE TO IT

i spliced two together in my toyota and they are for sure NOT aluminum

I wondered the same thing myself. My post was based on the assumption that the original poster was correct in thinking that the part was aluminum and that pretty much any factory aluminum part would be a cast part.

to weld aluminum you do need argon and like someonelse said you would definately want to use a tig setup cause mig is a lot more brittle. if you do tig weld it, make sure to heat it up a little bit to burn the coating off of the material, if it is cast its going to try to blow holes in it.