Oh, there's a thing of joy...

Oooh, nasty.

Makes my day of rebuilding front calipers and doing a fluid change to find that I've got a bit of a spongy brake pedal seem a bit trivial by comparison ;-)

What size thread is it? M12/M14? Any scope to drill it out and tap a larger size?

Helicoil.

But it will have to stripped and the crank put in a machine to drill and tap the nose true. If it's not the true the bolt will only clamp the damper at one point and that's not enough, it beds in then then the bolt is loose. With a loose bolt the damper unwinds the bolt and falls off.

Mmm.

Possibly, but - frankly - I think I've officially decided I can't be arsed.

A friend - who runs a race team as well as a workshop - has just suggested fitting an insert into the nose of the crank would be a good long term solution, and easy in-situ.

My reaction to this news has mildly surprised me, but completely confirmed the death sentence.

The thread in the crank or that on the bolt? Cranks are usually pretty tough steel.

No they're most definitely not. Cranks in production engines are almost exclusively just castings from either white or nodular cast iron apart from in a very few high performance engines with forged steel cranks for which a typical British BS970 grade would be EN19B. For nitrided billet custom made race engine cranks the usual material is EN40B. The crankshaft bolt would usually be a grade 10.9 high tensile metric bolt or the equivalent imperial spec in an old engine.

Typical tensile strengths in tons/sq inch.

Typical cast iron crankshaft material - 25 to 30 tons Grade 8.8 bolt - 52 Grade 10.9 bolt - 67 Grade 12.9 bolt - 79

The bolt material is therefore usually more than twice the tensile strength of the crank material.

Typical crankshaft steel tensile strength depending on the heat treatment condition would be around that of a general purpose grade 8.8 bolt for a forging and perhaps getting close to as high as a grade 10.9 bolt for a billet item.

I recall you saying it was unlikely to see another year through, in which case I give you the alternate suggestion. Locate where the aircon pump is/would go, install an electric motor to drive the ancilliaries from and put it up for sale. Someone will buy it and then buy it....

I've looked in the headlines this morning but I can't see an official pronouncement :-)

(Actually, "Man decides Shogun is shot" would beat the usual tossicocks.)

Right. ;-)

The MOT's in a month.

Look in the Death Announcements column soon.

CarTakeBack.com says £155 collected.

I presume they'll want wheels & tyres attached. I CBA to strip it too far. The new alternator can come off, as can the new rear calipers. Mebbe the chrome A-bar from the front. Nice shiny easy-to-flog.

Assuming there is decent access to the front of the crank with say the rad removed, I'd have a go at doing it with a hand held electric drill. Not much to loose if the vehicle is otherwise scrap.

A 'pattern' helicoil kit with everything needed can be bought for about 20 quid on Ebay.

Ah, yes, now that's the other thing. I had a good look at that today.

For "rad removed", read "rad, aircon, trans, oil coolers plus A-bar plus bumper plus various other bits of bodywork removed"...

I think I spotted a bolt head with a corner remaining on it. Just.

As a matter of interest, how did it get stripped? Never seen that in my limited experience.

She drove a mile, and the power steering disappeared...

The cambelt bottom pulley is keyed onto the crank, then a 5mm pin between that and the v-belt pulley. The previous owner had that pin shear in the past. I _suspect_ that was not unrelated.