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A Tale of Two Crankshafts


Brit car fan

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1980 Spitfire 1500.

Hello all, I recently bought a crankshaft supposedly for my spare engine only to find that it differs from a standard Spitfire 1500 engine in that the front end has a taper where the pulley locates, also a Gib key type key (straight) keyway as opposed to the woodruff (curved) keyway on the shaft end. My task now is to re-sell it on eBay but do not know what vehicle / engine it is for. In all other respects it is the same as a normal Spitfire 1500 crankshaft.

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Does anyone recognise it / know what car it goes on?

Also the other (existing) crankshaft shown is down to -60 thou on the big ends, and oval by a thou at that (hence the need for the replacement). Is it a scrapper? - would need metal spraying & grinding back to standard.

Thanks, Dave

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Definitely 1500 FWD.  The starter ring gear is attached to the front pulley and they discovered with the 1300 FWD that a plain straight shaft and key would get destroyed after a while. The taper fit was to prevent this.

"Loads of 1500 cranks knocking about"  Indeed.  Knocking often the operative word though......

Nick

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Metal spray can be very hard and not easy to grind to a good surface finish, from when I last tried 

Hopefully things have move on since the 1970

Did this many many  years back on a 1300fwd thrust washer failure sprayed the rear main it was never looking right , but with replacememt lugs on the caps to hold the thrusts this all lasted over ten years ....

 

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Don't think 1500 cranks are yet rare/expensive enough to justify metal spraying (attempts) and associated costs and risks.  Plenty of 1500 cranks about, though you may have to accept them wrapped in the remains of a short block! (which may yield other useful parts)

Nick

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Thanks Nick,

Looks like I'll just bite the bullet and weigh it in as I'm due to do another scrap run. Up until now I was just considering the cost side, was not even aware that success is not necessarily guaranteed. I've often wondered why regrinds are in steps of ten thou at a time given that worn cranks rarely show more than a thou and a half of ovality. If regrind steps could be at 5 thou most would clean up at that, and life of a crankshaft would be doubled. Cranks with plenty of regrind allowance and blocks with one rebore or less though atainable now are becoming rarer.

When you say a short block are you refering to just a short 1500 engine?

Thanks, Dave.

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