Damaged Crank - Part Of My Rb26 Track Car Rebuild

[wrxkilla]

Hi Guys,

See attached for some pics of the snout on my crank. Damaged by a Brisbane workshop when replacing a balancer.

How unhappy would you be?

[SimonR32]

i would be about $20k unhappy

seriously, thats a motor out, rebuild and reinstall job

[wrxkilla]

yeah its out being rebuilt now. And after finding this, I am pretty unhappy. I need a new crank.

This happened about a year ago (and car has run since) when I had Mercury Motorsport do some other work including replace the balancer with an ATi item. If I recall they had some probs getting the balancer off and had to use some force...

My oil pump has just died, so motor is now in peices and this is what I find. I personally would have preffered to know at the time the extent and would have replaced the crank!

Am I unreasonable?

[sav man]

what did they use the change the balancer, a ice pick?

[Merli]

what did they use the change the balancer, a ice pick?

or a crowbar...

That's easily fixed though. A bit of bog and a lick of paint, and she'll be as good as new!

[Beer Baron]

very similar thing happend to me mate. simple timing belt change at a well known and well trusted workshop resulted in my balancer eventually coming loose. lucky the crank snout was easily repairable and engine does not need. and also lucky my balancer came loose 200 meters from home, putting down the street at 40km/h, not down the straight at EC at 220 km/h and 7500rpm!

[AtomicBomberMan]

forgive my ignorance, but why are marks on the snout such a concern?

[dazmo]

I would be pissed mate that is why i do all my own work as some of these so called reputable workshops are pretty clueless and charge people a fair amount for the pleasure of them stuffing things up . I have a prepped stnd crank here 33pump drive grub screwed and nitrided is .25 from memory but will have to give it a measure up to be sure pm or call me if you are interested mate as is ready to go. hope all goes well for you and you can get it sorted for the next time attack day mate. Will have some pricing on the dry sump gear for you in the next few days aswell will shoot you a pm as oon as i have it all worked out.

[Merli]

Me too Daz... I'm interested in seeing how much a dry sump will cost me

[dazmo]

PM on its way in a few days Merli is definatly a worthy investment once you get your good engine on the go. I asume that you are running an ATI balncer on your car just need to know what balancer as the pump drive prive varies a bit depending on balancer.

[Merli]

Running a Ross Tuffbond balancer on my current engine, will see how it goes.

I'll be selling this current engine complete, so will be building a brand new engine from scratch once I replenish my party fund...

[dazmo]

Will be able to give you an idea of pricing as i dont think the machining required for the ross balancer will be much different than the ATI but as i have not made a pump drive for the Ross balancer I would need to get my hands on one to make some measurments for the machining is you decided to stick with the Ross. But in saying that ATI for the win in IMHO.

[Tektrader69]

I actually thought you could get that fixed. Those pits would weld up OK and machine down perfectly. Do you really need a new one?

[AtomicBomberMan]

forgive my ignorance, but why are marks on the snout such a concern?

[Angus Smart]

A similar thing happened to me too Mick, but i think it was me who did the damage.. i changed the timing belt and did it up VFT.. little did i know it needed to be VVVVVVVVFT

But it was dew for a rebuild anyway, the n1 bottom end will only take 1.8 bar for so long

[Merli]

forgive my ignorance, but why are marks on the snout such a concern?

It would unbalance and weaken the crank.

[Beer Baron]

tektrader is right. they can easily be welded and machined smooth again. it's only the surface for the balancer to sit on. but mikes problem is not just that visible damage, he has a smashed oil pump and from memory it's picked up a bearing so most likely journals are damaged too. if it was just those little bits on the snout then for sure it can be fixed no problem.

[wrxkilla]

forgive my ignorance, but why are marks on the snout such a concern?

crank is integral to balance of engine and subsequently with mass missing it wouldnt have perfect balance.

Thanks Daz - have sent you pm. Interested in your crank.

Mick

[AtomicBomberMan]

cheers. thanks for the reply. i really didnt know a mark on the very end could make such a big difference!

[Beer Baron]

cheers. thanks for the reply. i really didnt know a mark on the very end could make such a big difference!

on it's own it doesn't unless it's causing the balancer not to be mounted properly. if that is the case then it's spinning off it's axis which will be doing things no good at all. that could well have been the case with micks. you certainly wouldn't use a crank looking like that but i's easy enough to remove keway, weld then machine the crank snout, press in new keyway and away you go.