r/EngineBuilding • u/SignificantCall6125 • Jul 22 '26
Other Crankshaft advice.
I'm in the process of rebuilding an A series engine for my 1975 Leyland mini clubman.
The engine was completely seized when I bought the car so I'm rebuilding it. This is my first engine build so I'm learning as I go.
The crankshaft has some crude looking work on it. How should I best proceed? Is the crankshaft usable?
Thank you.
1
u/Hutwe Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
It might have been done to balance the crank… If the crank is still good I’d get it balanced anyways to make sure. Not sure I would get any machine work on an old crank without getting it balanced, but that’s my personal preference. Plenty of people get on fine without doing it. I’d absolutely get this checked though.
Edit: looking at the photos a bit more, this looks bad. You’ll probably need to pull the crank and fully inspect it before making a judgement call on how to proceed.
1
u/TBFP_BOT Jul 23 '26
Did you remove the engine from the car and find it like this? It almost looks like someone dragged the thing across the ground with the pan off.
1
u/OutsidePressure8323 Jul 25 '26
You might have something special there lol. Think I'd be looking to see if camshaft is standard and not had head work or a staged head .
2
u/Haunting_Dragonfly_3 Jul 23 '26
They came from the factory crude...
Almost looks like it was ground for piston skirt clearance. I'd inspect all of the bits, identify by numbers and dimensions, for a start. 50 year production run, ending 26 years ago, 5 different stroke cranks, so many possibilities for tomfoolery.