Hi Phil,

I have not had that happen; however, when I got my kit from the previous company (prior to John) both of the brackets welded to the fuselage botton for anchoring the rudder pedal adjustment arms were defective. One of the ears broke off with a little push - all of them were burned almost through the bracket. A little careful and judicious work with a small tip oxy/acetlyene torch cured it. OXY/Acet work is quite versatile and in this case, all the the metal was 4130 alloy so no particular issues.

If it were me, I'd pull the part, sandblast it, V-out the crack if necessary to assure complete weld penetration and do the repair with the torch, prime, repaint and go fly. The torch can also be used to normalize the welded area to stress relieve the area - commonly done in antiquity with airframe welding before everyone went to electric welding.

Most work today seems to be done with TIG or MIG systems which would not be my first choice (particularily MIG). Doesn't seem to be many people who are up on oxy-acet as in the past A competent OA welder would make short work of the repair.