Difference in crank web thickness, advantage?

[Paperman]

Going to take a few crankshafts to the grinder.

Lining them up I see difference in web thickness, any advantage to either. None are marked EE that I can see, I’ll be cleaning them up and taking some measurements to see if they are worth grinding. Have a need for 2 of them now and a spare is always good.

[RajoRacer]

I'd spend my regrind $'s on the straight web '26 - '27 design.

[Jerry VanOoteghem]

Have you had any of them magna-fluxed? That would be my first step.

[Paperman]

Have you had any of them magna-fluxed? That would be my first step.

Plan to after I get them cleaned up. Need to brush them with some solvent, wire wheel some rust off.

[Erik Barrett]

Two of them are 26/27 cranks. Magnaflux those and have them ground if they pass. The rest are earlier. They are like a hand grenade with the pin pulled. Sooner or later…. I do not use them. In fact l have scrapped so many of them over the years I could have made a neat picket fence if I had saved them all. I have not been buying crank cores in the last few years as I have a couple dozen ground late cranks ready to go and about half of my customers are using new cranks anyway. Even when I was looking it was tough to find cranks that I could send to my grinder. Early ones I don’t look at. Late ones are often cracked or worn below .020” undersize. EE cranks are tougher but the steel formula is softer and they wear faster so I often find them with the rear journal already .030” under. So I don’t even look at cranks at swap meets anymore. Scat cranks have supply issues and are getting real spendy with a long waiting list but there is an alternative available and in stock right now. I had one at Turlock and I expect the manufacturer to bring some to Bakersfield/Porterville.

[Craig Leach]

I was told that Henry only made to cranks for Model T's those that have broke & those that will! Personally I think alignment is more important
than we are willing to achieve & the older these cranks get the more important it is.
Craig.

[Joe Bell]

If you are in a pinch the AA crank is next one down from the EE they have less chromiun in them, stay away from any crank that have been ground off on the throws some are really thin from balancing at factory, more chances of breaking there, I am with Eric the 26-7 is my choice of cranks with the thicker throws.

[KeithG]

A few years back, a story was related to me about which crankshafts to use as I had just broken one. In about 1923, the Ford trouble shooters employed by Ford to visit the Ford Agencies and help with their problems, began bringing back more and more reports of broken crankshafts. The cars in 1923 were heavier that the original 1909 T's and the roads were getting much better so the T's could be driven faster. The result was more broken crankshafts. The crankshafts had not been changed since the T's had been introduced in October, 1908. They were still the ones with thinner throws between the rod journals and which had a diamond shape to them. The story goes further saying that those made by Transue Williams seemed to be the ones breaking the most often. When Mr. Ford got word of this problem he had his engine design men work on improving the crankshafts to solve the problem but whatever they did had to be backward compatible with the earlier engines. The result was the thicker design crankshafts. The metallurgy and heat treating in these crankshafts was also improved several times finally resulting in the EE crankshafts used in the 1927 T's. In examining the two broken crankshafts I broke, they are both the early design crankshafts and both of them were made by Transue Williams. Transue Williams crankshafts can be identified by a T over a W logo cast into the crankshafts. Like Erik Barrett said above, I will never again use one of the early style crankshafts in any of my T's.

Have any of the rest of you heard a story similar to this one?

Keith