one more question

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furydan

furydan

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Can a crank be removed from an engine without taking the heads off? I have just finished building my 318 and now it looks like I might have to take the crank back out to have the hole drilled for the pilot bushing. I haven't put the motor in the car yet, but it is completely assembled and painted. I really dont want to take it all apart, but choosing to use a 1965 crank from a 273 motor is becoming more of a headache than I thought it would be. If I could just take off the oil pan and remove the crank I would be much happier than having to completely tear apart the motor and get all new gaskets again.
Dan
 
Hi Dan,

i think the heads can stay, but you have to remove the timing cover to remove the chain and the crank gear. Then loosen the rod and main bolts, remove the caps and you are ready to remove the crank. I´d push the pistons to tdc to gain some space with the rod journals. Be careful with the bearing shells, they can fall down! Be careful not to scratch or nick the journals with the bolts!

Oh, forgot to mention you maybe have to remove the oil pump assy from the last main cap - first i´d remove the drive shaft from the other side.

Mark the main and rod caps and put it back together according these marks.

Good luck!

Michael
 
360duster has given you great advice. To avoid scratching the crank with the rod bolts, cut some vacuum hose to about 2" long and slide it over each rod bolt. Cheap mans crank protector.
 
You can change the crank without removing the heads. Had to do this once on a 318 that had a crank that was out of balance and shaking my teeth out... I swapped it without pulling the engine as well. You do need to be mindful that you may end up with a engine that is not well balanced and to resolve that would require pulling the heads so the pistons can be pulled to go with the other rotating assembly for the work.
 
Here I thought I would be installing this motor this weekend.....Looks like I will be taking it apart again....I am gonna try to get the pilot bearing cut down to fit the crank register hole 1st. If that can't be done, then looks like a tear down weekend for me.
 
Some wonderings from the elderly

I'm not really familiar with the older cranks -- I know the torque converter register was smaller in some of the earlier cranks--

You used to be able to BUY undersize pilot bushings for auto cranks.

BE ABSOLUTELY SURE to check the DEPTH of the hole. Easy way out of this is to chop a little off the input shaft of your gearbox. This is not as hokey as it sounds, I believe it only takes 1/4 --3/8" or so.

Have you looked at the possibility of using the later "big" bearing which fits into the torque converter register, only of course you'd have to turn that down? I'm thinking it might be easier to handle than to reduce the size of the very thin conventional bushing.
 
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