That’s a good idea using judicious heat from a torch to soften the aluminum a tiny bit. I cracked up my rear regulator trying to bend it back cold.

It turns out they are a high quality aluminum casting and they TIG weld easily. Also I was able to TIG braze new teeth on with silicon bronze filler rod. This stuff is slightly softer than steel so it is easy to shape using a dremel tool with a cutoff wheel. I flattened the faces of the gear with a disk sander.

From my old thread somewhere on this forum.

I just blobbed on some SiBronze like this.



Then I grind like this. The regulators have a slight whine to them because I didn’t perfectly match the tooth profile but they work well.



As mentioned the aluminum is weldable. I just used junk aluminum picture hanging wire to do this. It’s not pretty but it filled in all the cracks I made bending it out.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles
97 C280 147k miles