I remember seeing welded stroker crank shafts in early hotrod magazines. Any of you guys have any experience with them?
Back then about the only way to get a stroker crank was to weld it up and have it machined. Today you can buy almost any crank combo you want, so like a lot of old things, you don't hear much about welded cranks.
In the 40,50,early 60s there was not much,other ways to get big stroke. Welding up a steel crank worked ,but was a crap shoot in many ways, Welding added strass an flaws,warped/bent crank=than had to be bent back to straight adding even more flaws. Some lasted amazingly well,knowing how many things can go wrong. We boxed rods too ,to try to made better. But welding on cranks or rods in the end is an was high risk,but lower $ then buttet. Now there are Co. that do bullet,cut from blocks for parts with as few flaws as can be,for making big HP.
Birdman it is done all the time especially on cranks for hard to get cranks like early Olds, Caddy, Buick etc. It also enables you to use a readily available rod like BB or SB Chevys. Pat
Storm Crankshaft Mount Vernon NY. they do welded strokers , this is also to repair rare crankshafts and camshafts. they ship global. Try them.
I used welded strokers in VW's all the time. Never had an issue but also dealt with quality companies.
Cool! Sub-Arc (submerged arc) welding. They used this process to weld steel tanks and pressure vessels at the place I worked back in the 90’s.
Similar topic, anyone had journals hard chromed? Tool maker I used to work with was telling me about his class racing days, 413's then 426, won a lot of cash on and off the track. They were welding and offset grinding cranks, also hard chroming the journals to run very loose clearances. Said the hard chroming made a difference on the welded journals. This was in Indianapolis, could have been companies specializing in it, he was doing his own crank machining and had access to heat treat and normalizing equipment most of us dont. Interested if this was done back in the day on a regular basis.
Marine crankshaft in the Los Angeles area does welded cranks at reasonable prices...reasonable, as in, not like a custom Winberg piece. I have a left-over 426H Winberg crank, it is oh so nice, but $$$$$. I do recall some folks hard chroming cranks back in the 60's but, apparently, not real popular today. .
Yes, hard chrome was the in thing for a while and was used a lot on welded cranks. Today nitride hardening is used. The EPA put a lot of chrome applications into the very expensive or no longer allowed category.
My local crankshaft shop routinely welds them up, and pretty cheap too. As soon as we are allowed out, I will be dropping off two Hemi cranks, each to get a rod journal touched up.
Well, actually, it was the chrome shops, irresponsibly disposing or waste that brought the hammer down on them. What made chroming cheap in the past was the exporting of the costs of it, to the environment. This is not political, it is psychological. Anyone who thinks poisoning the water supply, so they can get something cheaper, is a sociopath, or worse.
Not only the much stricter environmental control costs, but also chrome plating is done in a chromic acid bath. Chromic acid has hexavalent chromium which is carcinogenic. Back to op question, I would agree less common now with cheaper offshore forgings that provide common stroker sizes. Another way to get small stroke increase is offset grinding the rod journal down to smaller diameter. Usually good for around. .125 inches stroke increase. Sent from dumb operator on a smart phone
I read up on C-T, Don Clark and Clem Tebow, one of their young employees who was great at welding cranks, was Kent Fuller. The flathead pictured was 352", via a Crankshaft Co. 1" stroker. Set the NHRA record in '62. Johnnie Hart D/D.
In no way was I suggesting that the EPA's actions were wrong, or not warranted. They addressed something that needed fixing. For me it was a short way of explaining the reason you don't see many chrome operations today, which was the OP's original question. Just like changes in leather tanning, oil disposal, trash management, etc.
A 1" stroke on a 2" journal means that half the journal is weld, right? How long would something like that last? And I'm assuming they had to grind a huge notch in the bottom rails of the block, so it was probably filled.
Right Marty, You move the center line of the rod journal out 1/2". You would need to have 1/2" of weld on the outer side to grind down to the proper rod journal diameter. I have seen this done two ways: Offset grind the journal down until it is round, then weld it back up to the new stroke. This keeps the final surface the same depth and material around the entire circumference. The other way is to just lay weld on the outer half of the journal and then grind it on the new stroke radius. This leaves a weld line (visible or not) on each side of the journal. My guess is that the first way is stronger, but what do I know?
Back in the day when it was popular, cars were not going as fast as they are now and didnt have traction that would put a load on the driveline either
I've been looking into this for at least a year. I've only found 2 shops that will still do a welded stroker crank, and 1 of them was over $2500 for a 3/4" increase. The one I'll go with is just over a grand if my motor doesn't sell.
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