The Cheap Bastage is at it again....Crank Polishing

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Racin'Jacin
Posts: 354
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2008 11:01 pm

The Cheap Bastage is at it again....Crank Polishing

Post by Racin'Jacin »

Well, wouldn't you know it that I would stumble on a youtube video showing how to polish a crank!g!

Well that did it!! During the dragster's last engine tear down I chucked that baby up on my lathe to see if it'd fit and VIOLA it did -just barely ! :-)

Background: During my last oil inspection I found some debris - turns out it was the shim material used to preload the bottom end girdle. My mains are preloaded and thin shims are used to set the preload. Anyways they had apparently walked enough to get in the way of the crank and were summarily cut up and the result was some debris - luckily I caught it before any serious damage had occurred. I did note some fine scratches in the journals but luckily the bearings took the brunt of the damage! So the only thing left to do was to polish the crank. Using some very fine emery cloth I went over each rod and main - mic - polish - mic -polish. Wasn't looking to change the dimensions just pretty everything up again. Seemed to work great! I wouldn't want to try this on someone else's crank as I'm certainly not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I will say this - that very crank went 143.4 mph this past weekend! Call it dumb luck - either way I was a happy camper!!!



Thought you might enjoy my cheapness ;-)

Racin'Jacin


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Basement Paul
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Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 9:27 pm
Location: In the dirt.

Re: The Cheap Bastage is at it again....Crank Polishing

Post by Basement Paul »

Cheapness + Knowhow = Free!

I saw the 143mph and the car was great. Now you just need one cooler day for that LOW ET.

-BP
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Racin'Jacin
Posts: 354
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2008 11:01 pm

Re: The Cheap Bastage is at it again....Crank Polishing

Post by Racin'Jacin »

BP, I think it will still take some more fuel. We've been adding a little more each time - trying to find that sweet spot. Also the converter is way off - this cam really makes it obvious. Maybe I'll get to that over the winter - we'll see.

Fingers crossed for another good day - I would love to break my ET mark!


BTW we need more pics of the caddy - roasting the hides!!!



Racin' Jacin
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Basement Paul
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Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 9:27 pm
Location: In the dirt.

Re: The Cheap Bastage is at it again....Crank Polishing

Post by Basement Paul »

Unfortunately, it's tough to take a picture of myself.

I went out yesterday only to find that they were only running 1/8 mile because of how much dampness there was on the shutdown area. I left because 1/8 mile racing is not fun when the entry is $50 and I really just want a 1/4 mile ET.

-BP
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