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My dad worked as a welder in his younger days (he is now 88) and he has always told me that cast iron does require special handling. I don't remember all the details, but essentially it involved preheating the cast before doing the weld. Having said that, you might be interested in a recent experience I had with welding cast. My J-D 1010 has a hand crank leveler adjustment on one three-point hitch arm. The handle had been broken off, rewelded back on and then broken off again. I got tired of trying to adjust it by twisting the cast iron hub with my hands or with channel locks so decided to make and weld on another crank. I must tell you that I am a rank amateur at welding. I just grab a rod, set the heat and see what happens. If it doesn't work, I adjust the heat and try again. With the crank, I took two three-eighths inch bolts, cut the threads off, welded the cut ends together at about 105� angle, used the grinder to round off the hex shoulders on one end to give me a round knob and welded the other head to the side of the cast iron hub. All the welds (surprisingly!) came out beautifully, including the one to the cast. I have been using it for several months now and the weld seems to be holding fine. So I guess my advice to you, particularly since you are not welding where there would be stress on the joint, would be to just go for it! My concern would be with getting drops of slag or molten metal inside the axle. If that worries you too much, you could try what my second choice would be. Clean it very well and close the hole with Bondo. You could always grind the Bondo out later and weld it if the Bondo solution didn't last.
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