Am I Increasing Chances for Crank Breaking??

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Model T Ford Forum: Forum 2012: Am I Increasing Chances for Crank Breaking??
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By george house on Thursday, October 25, 2012 - 06:08 pm:

Finally, the '26 tudor is finished. Beginning with finding the paint scheme on this Forum - Gun Metal Blue over Black - to the final question about rear pancake Hasslers, I'm greatly indebted to all my Forum Friends for advice. Then Tuesday I drove over to Brenham, TX in the modern iron to view the cars on this year's Glidden Tour. Spoke to a Model T guy from VA who said all seven broken crankshafts on the Ocean to Ocean tour were on Warford equipped Model T s. Now I just finished having an original restored cast iron Warford installed in the '26 tudor. He said it was due to the geometry of the U joint and made a lot of sense. To compound my perceived problem, I also installed the pancake Hasslers only on the rear thereby increasing the frame heigth several inches and also increasing the angle of the driveshaft to the Warford. I should also say that I use the truck Warford frame rail brace and the L angles that tie in the hogshead, rear engine corners to the pan. What do ya'll think?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By John Danuser on Thursday, October 25, 2012 - 07:06 pm:

Geo drive the he-- out of it and enjoy the ride, I have 2 here, neither are restored, future projects


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kohnke Rebabbitting on Thursday, October 25, 2012 - 07:28 pm:

It's all B.S. George. There are a lot more things then a out side transmission, that breaks cranks, and the biggest one is not crack checking the cranks, before use.

If that was the case, when the Model T's were new, the crank breaking stories would have put a stop to any sales.

I wonder, of those seven, how many had the right amount of air in their tires. Makes as much sense!

Thanks Herm.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Terry Woods, Katy, Texas on Thursday, October 25, 2012 - 07:59 pm:

George, What Herm said, makes sense. If the weight of a Warford trans on the back of a T trans caused crank failures of a catastropic scale, the the Warford company wouldn't have lasted a year. I am a firm believer in an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Use some kind of support under your Warford, though, especially if its a cast iron case. It certainly can't hurt. I have an original aluminum case Warford and if I use it, I'm going to make a removable under trans crossmember and use a 40's era flathead trans mount. They're made of thick rubber and should do the trick. I suspect those broken cranks on that tour that were referred to, were in pans that weren't checked on a jig.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ricks - Surf City on Thursday, October 25, 2012 - 08:37 pm:

Yeh, just coincidence; move along now.

Paul Vitko can tell you all about the stresses on the crank from weight on the tail. He's made the measurements and done the math.

A carrier on the frame may be nothing more than a bandaid. The frame twists, bends, wiggles and squirms from that attach point to the engine mounts.

For crankshaft life, the best aux trannies are mounted to the diffy.

rdr


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ricks - Surf City on Thursday, October 25, 2012 - 08:39 pm:

"I should also say that I use the truck Warford frame rail brace and the L angles that tie in the hogshead, rear engine corners to the pan. What do ya'll think?"

I think the Improved Ford hogshead attach to the block is great. It reduces crankshaft flex a heap.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Norman T. Kling on Thursday, October 25, 2012 - 08:55 pm:

I would agree with Ricks. George has a 26 and if the engine and hogshead are original he has those bolts. He would also have the angle braces under the crankcase and he should if he doesn't have the straps from the motor mount to the two hogs head bolts on the back of the block. I would also recommend he use both bolts and the wood block on each ear of the crankcase to frame, but leave the center bolt loose. Just tighten enough to get the cotter pin in. And tighten the top one.

With the truck bracket at the rear of the warford, he should be just fine. It might still break, but some of the Model T crankshafts broke when the cars were fairly new. I can remember my grandfather telling about a broken crankshaft before I was even born.
Norm


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Walt Berdan, Bellevue, WA on Thursday, October 25, 2012 - 10:30 pm:

Norm,

That is one heck of a memory if your grandfather told you the story before you were born. :-)

Walt


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Wayne Murray - Anacortes, WA on Thursday, October 25, 2012 - 11:25 pm:

Now thas funny...I put a "new" Warford behind a "Z" counter balanced crank on the '27 Coupe and have just over 2K miles on it so far with no extra bracing other than the stock hogshead straps and crankcase "L" brackets. I checked the pan on a crankcase check jig for straightness and aligned the tail shaft during assembly. I keep my fingers crossed and lift my feet at all RR crossings in hopes that I don't join the 2-piece crank club !! So far...so good !!!
Cheers- W
Sent from my iPod

TT


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Billy McGuire on Thursday, October 25, 2012 - 11:49 pm:

George,

While I know about the working theory about the broken cranks and warfords that was conjured up, I can attest to you that there were many other cars, including my own, who drove modern warfords on the ocean to ocean tour with no problems at all. Mine has been thousands of miles since, and still not had any problems. I have it so that it is supported in a "floating" fashion with angle iron and springs under compression, and it is great.

There are a lot of things that can contribute to stressing these flimsy little cranks and I think that people often look for easy answers. The Warford may give you more gears, but it still needs to be driven like a Model T.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Wayne Sheldon, Grass Valley, CA on Friday, October 26, 2012 - 01:06 am:

Lugging the engine is also a cause of crank failure. Some people put overdrive in a T and putt down the road at 40mph. The only thing that will break a crank faster is a bent pan.
One thing I read concerns me. The "truck" frame (TT) is bigger from top to bottom. Since the pan sits on the top of the frame, the cross brace at the back of the transmission should sit on the frame lower. That would be an easy thing to fix, but first, you must be sure of the fit of your brace. Otherwise, it could do more harm than good.
Drive carefully, and enjoy, W2


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By george house on Friday, October 26, 2012 - 08:13 am:

Thanks to all my 'fears' are allayed. I shall drive and enjoy like it is a Model T and not a Bugatti. As to your first sentence above Wayne, I've also heard a lot of T crankshafts are broken in the tour motel parking lot illustrating to others how slow an engine can 'cadillac'. Now that I've had most of the field grade officers of the Forum Braintrust contribute I'll continue to be sensible in my Model T driving habits with this tudor. Billy, the TT support brace is fastened under the T frame utilizing a radiator spring and bolt on each rail to enable, I hope, a 'float'.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By James A. Golden on Friday, October 26, 2012 - 08:49 am:

There was an article on one of these forums about 10 years ago relating to a method for lowering the Model T chassis a few inches to straighten out the U-Joint angle.

The power to the rear wheels was increased considerably by a decreased U-joint angle.

Adding a Warford increases that U-joint angle a considerable amount.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Billy McGuire on Friday, October 26, 2012 - 08:50 am:

In reference to "Float" - I did not have the TT brace, so I used a piece of light angle iron that I coped to fit on the rear of the ball cap and used these two bolts. I used all-thread with nylock nuts (made the holes a little generous) and selected springs from the hardware store. There are springs on the top and the bottom of the lower frame rail. When I installed the whole thing, I used a dial indicator to make sure that the tranny was "neutral"

I will try to take a few photos of it this weekend.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Richard Wolf on Friday, October 26, 2012 - 09:22 am:

Over winding the engine, missing a gear, when shifting. I hear these guy tac the engine out when shifting. Not good.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Royce in Dallas TX on Friday, October 26, 2012 - 09:56 am:

During the O2O tour out of 56 cars 14 did not finish. Of the 7 broken crankshafts two were in Jon G's coupe. From the description of his problems I would suspect the constantly misfiring True Fire may have been equally to blame along with the excess engine speed and the heavy Layne Warford on the back of the engine.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Billy McGuire on Friday, October 26, 2012 - 10:52 am:

When talking about the "excess engine speed" that is why I wanted the warford. I used it to keep the RPM in the peak hp range of the Model T engine at cruising speeds while also providing the underdrive ratio of a Ruckstell.

Cliff Jenkins (Tour leader in 1984) said that the cars that performed the best then were stock T's. Some people driving Ocean to Ocean drove stock T's. Most of them did very well. Some had performance features. Many of them performed well. I set mine up with coils, anderson timer, champion x plugs, NH Carb, Aluminum intake, Stipe 280 cam, a warford, and a Z head. My tranny brake was/is adjusted so the both it and the Rocky Mountain Brakes work. I spent inordinate time balancing the transmission. My only problem was not related to any of these components, but inferior quality reproduction parts.

Royce, the 14 dnf number seems to be higher than I recall, but I was not counting.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Adam Doleshal on Friday, October 26, 2012 - 11:06 am:

Here are some of the reasons why crank shafts break: "Lugging" the engine, modern clutch discs (there is a small amount of "slip" in the original discs before they totally lock up which is a protective shock absorber for the rotating parts of the engine and drive train), mis-aligned engine rebuilds, improper timing inherent in "accessory" ignition systems (constantly running a little too advanced is very hard on the crank), balance issues, abusive driving techniques, Putting a performance head and cam on an engine that isn't properly balanced in the first place, and of course EIGHTY FIVE YEAR AND OLDER PARTS THAT MAY HAVE NOT BEEN PROPERLY QUALITY CHECKED AT THE LAST RE-BUILD.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Royce in Dallas TX on Friday, October 26, 2012 - 11:08 am:

Billy,

I probably could have used better words, I should have said excess vehicle speed. Driving at 50 MPH in a Model T places extreme stress on all the driveline parts, making failure come sooner than it would if you were travelling at ordinary Model T speeds 0f 30 - 35 MPH.

While the overdrive lowers engine RPM, it does not reduce the power needed to maintain the speed. So things like rear axles and crankshafts take a beating and fail with higher regularity.

If you review the failures on the O2O tour you will see the typical failures one sees on every Model T tour. Watts clutch burned out, leaving the vehicle useless. Multiple crankshaft failures on the cars that drove at the highest speeds. Water pump failures. Ignition failure of True Fire units. All predictable and to be expected.

The Model Ts that used original coil ignition, factory clutch discs, and drove at more reasonable speeds had less trouble than the guys who made their Ts into high speed, low reliability vehicles.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Terry Horlick in Penn Valley, CA on Friday, October 26, 2012 - 12:11 pm:

I've broken three crankshafts. Only one was when I had a Muncie transmission mounted on the rear. I had a frame cross brace supporting the tranny. When I got the car off the road I discovered first that the crankshaft was broken and second that my support had come undone.

The other two broken crankshafts happened with stock set-up. Perhaps they were remembering (or anticipating) the addition of the auxilliary transmission.

George you are probably going to be fine... but if you break a crank it will be because of your Hasslers, or because of the gun-metal blue paint... of this I am sure.

TH


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ricks - Surf City on Friday, October 26, 2012 - 12:40 pm:

Of the seven broken cranks on the O2O, how many were Improved Fords?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Erik Barrett on Friday, October 26, 2012 - 01:14 pm:

A properly installed iron case Warford having a u-joint in front of it will reduce, rather than increase, stresses on the crankcase as it isolates the engine from forces generated by the rear end. Fear not.
Erik


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