Broken arm on heater core door.

[chargermick]

I couldn't turn the heat off in my '69 all last summer. I took out the heater duct and I see that the rod that's attached to the door that covers the heater core is broken off below the edge of the duct. I first thought of welding a new piece of rod to the existing piece, but I won't be able to re-install it in the duct if I do that. Anybody have any experience with this?

[Chryco Psycho]

can you not weld it back together or recreate the existing rod so ti fits in like the stock piece would ?