We make a fully custom ball bearing crankshaft 

Many dirtbikes, ATVs, lawnmowers, etc use needle bearings for the crankshaft to rod rotary connection. Upon doing some research I found that the typical surface bearings used in vehicles need a consistently high oil pressure to prevent damage. This also means that engines that routinely get tipped over, shook, etc rarely use these bearings as the engine can be oriented such that the oil pump receives no oil (ie. dirtbike wrecked on it's side). The needle bearings can survive this as they operate off the oil mist in the crankcase and do not need a consistent oil pressure supply to prevent wear (the film stays on the bearing much longer). Vehicle engines do not ever undergo random losses of oil pressure so the need to have bearings that can survive without oil does not exist, thus they can use the far cheaper surface bearings.

Should have used split cage needle roller bearings. You could machine the crankshaft and conrod to suit and with a groove cut in the outer diameter you can still deliver oil to the wrist pin and cylinder walls.

The Germans used ball baring crankshafts in the V-12 Panzer and Tiger engines in WW2. The crankshafts where bolt together design. It took a incredible amount of design, machining and assembly to pull it off but they did. The tank engines ran on gasoline, 7 to 1 compression ratio and 16 litter displacement pumping out around 700hp.

As a mechanic I love your crazy Ideas ! Honda actually build 9000 RPM engines like this for their first cars . I don't know all the details, but you're experts!

Motorcycles use a press-fit pin and then you can do the final alignment in a jig with a dial indicator. You might also use a pinned crank, where a hole is drilled and a pin or bolt is inserted to hold alignment rather than welding. On the rods, using a needle bearing would give you thinner bearings to work with, but you need a hard enough surface for them to roll on.

You fellows work well together in solving problems. Sticking with a problem until you solve it no matter how many failures is inspirational. Good work!

Drill almost right through each lobe of the crank shaft and insert roll pins all the way through, that should hold each section together. You could even tap the hole and cap it off with a set screw, use loctite thread locker for extra security and that way the pin has no chance of working it's way out.

A very cool idea and it did work although temporarily. I have seen a roller bearing cam shaft something from the 60's I believe. It had a 2 peace bearing with some type of rollers inside and the halves were held together with a tiny spring like in a seal and allowed oil flow into the center of the bearing to lube the rollers. That's the only one I have ever seen and even a couple hot rod buddies never heard of such a thing. It was purchased in a whole bunch of old circle track car parts from the 50' to the 70's, sadly I don't know what it fits but I assume a Chevrolet. If anyone has ever heard of such a thing I would love to hear about it. But what I was getting at is, that would be the best way I can think of to make a ball bearing crank shaft and would it would definitely free up the crank shaft. Love your videos, you guys rock.

NTN has developed split roller bearings for automotive applications, including camshafts. These look like a great idea for reducing friction. Ball bearings are not good for lateral thrust applications whereas rollers are. Great job getting this done! The belated oil circuit confusion was entertaining. Might have to introduce some oil jets to splash the bottom of the pistons? Perhaps cross-pins through the intersections of the crank might have helped? Maybach and others successfully built tunnel crankshaft engines but these require bearing internal diameters larger than the crank throw. Doubt there is enough room to modify the crankcase for that in a Lada. Ever since owning a couple of Niva 4x4, I have always admired the simplicity and ruggedness of Russian vehicles. The Niva would often go places that vehicles costing 10x more could not. But they would have benefited from a 2 litre engine and maybe 300mm increase in overall length for road use. You could buy them new with a 2L Toyota diesel in New Zealand when Lada cars were taken in exchange for dairy products in the 1980s. A local company converted new Niva’s and they really were much improved by this engine. Love this channel - subscribed! 👍🏻

The built-up ball or needle bearing motorcycle cranks I've seen have been pressed together.

There is a reason for plain bearings instead of ball/needle bearings. The contacting surface of a ball/needle bearing is a tiny spot. Meanwhile the contacting surface of a plain bearing is almost a 180° of the circle.

Multiple pieces crankshafts are used in two stroke engines. And they are not welded but are strongly press fit. And they seem to be holding pretty well.

Vlad has a great mechanical mind. Always enjoyable. Greetings from USA.

Many years ago, someone special ordered a Volkswagen crankshaft assembled with either ball bearings or with needle bearings, it was used in the pancake style air cooled 4 cylinder, it came from Germany.

I tore down a marine engine when i was young that used needle bearing assemblies mounted on a forged crankshaft. The design was really neat, the outer race was unevenly split and had two grooves on the outside that spring steel retainer rings would fit on to hold the outer race together while assembling. If you looked at the outer race from the side the split would look like this [ / ]. I thought about it for a while and concluded that they split them at an angle like that so that the needle bearings would not hang up because it would only encounter a small portion of the seam as it was rolling by. There were oil port holes in them too, and the journals had a small groove for oil to travel freely to the oil port on the race.. After seeing that, i always thought that oil bathed needle bearings, or a more chunky roller bearing would be the best alternative (hopefully more durable) solution to soft metal solid bearings or bushings.

What you should do next is to make a crossplane i4 engine by cutting and welding the crank as well as the camshaft for the new timing of the engine. I would love to hear a car with such a unique engine.

Hondas in the 60’s when they first started making cars did this on everything, it needed no oil pressure

Man, this was done to an American V8 more than 40 years ago, and motorcycles used roller bearings in the bottom ends of both 2 stroke and 4 stroke engines for decades.

I have thought of this for some years now. The solution i came up with for connecting the journals to the crank arms was a light press fit with machined splines, keyway, or some sort of interference rotational wise fit. A flat spot in the circle of both meshing parts. Then secure it together with a decent sized bolt and a beefy washer. I’ve dreamed of designing and building a stackable single cylinder heavy duty industrial engine like this. Design each cylinder so it could be mated to other cylinders either on end or in a v configuration.

A lot of motorcycle crankshafts are press-fit with some being doweled and/or having keyways and use roller bearings on the ends and/or the middle as well. Cool approach to it though!

The ingenuity and the fact that you were actually successful only limited was a great step forward. Perhaps one day someone will be able to perfect it and it will be revolutionary for future engines. Great Job!

Needed to be splined together. Some snow mobiles have roller bearing cranks and they use keyways and slines to mechanically connnect the peices.

Sergei, always thinking 10 steps ahead.

Try recessed cross pins, then weld those in place. the journals should be press fit. Keep up the good work!!!🥸

Very good effort. I have never seen anything kill this before. Genius idea!!!!!!!! 10 out 10 the idea and effort and the fact it started and ran for few minutes. Keep it up and maybe sports engine makers might learn something from you. Try and sell this idea to some big company with the condition that you will work on the engine yourself in there facility and make the first sport engine crank shaft running on ball bearings

On top of welding, maybe drilling and pinning each joint would strengthen it up.

Bearings were attempted on cranks in Nascar engines like this. They don't hold up to compression and firing - beats them up. They also make needle rollers for cams, but have to idle very high for oil pressure.

I think this concept is worth further investigation. Everyone knows that roller-bearings are far superior to bushed bearings. If you can get the welds right and the angles right, I think this thing would rev it's head off and be much smoother to drive. I want to see you guys do it!

Wonder if you could spline the ends of the crankshaft sections and eliminate the need for welding. Might even be able to replace only the broke parts when it blew that way.🤔

Ask steam engine people how to properly build an assembled crankshaft. It needs the right kids of steels that won't stretch or crush. The webs get heated then pressed onto the journals. Then when the webs shrink they lock firmly onto the journals and will never twist even with the huge torque a steam engine can produce - because the right steel for the job won't stretch. I learned that from an old website detailing the rebuilding of an old steam launch. The guy covered how he built a new crankshaft from scratch and was so proud of it. Then when he assembled it and ran stem to it, in short order the crankshaft was twisted out of alignment. Upon removal from the engine it fell apart because the holes had been stretched. That's when he did the research he should have done first. The second crankshaft he built with the correct steel worked perfectly.

Finally With ur video my lunch is going to be perfect 👍🏼

I remember in early 1970s having an old Peugeot moped with tiny 2- cycle engine which had needle bearing connecting rod. I remember having it apart and trying to figure how they put the rod and bearings together on the one- piece crank.

I would love to see you build a rotary motor .

Try welding the crankshaft inside a sandblasting box filled with welding gas, that way you can just pull the nozzle off the mig welder and access more difficult part with with the mig welding tip.

take a stock crank and cut large grooves in the journals, then using grease to hold them lay rollers from roller bearings in the grooves and reassemble.

many years ago a company called SPG made roller bearing crankshafts for VW and Porche... you need a modified oiling system as the roller bearing require a lot more volume

In the pre WW1 era Stutz made a racing engine with ball bearing crankshaft. 4 cylinder 3 main bearings, crankshaft split in the middle to put in the middle bearing. They found out the difference in friction between ball bearings and pressure lubed plain bearings was not worth the trouble. In other words if the ball bearing engine made more power the difference was so small as not to be worth the expense.

You guys should've made the crankshaft with splines like an axle, and put it together piece by piece. Would have been stronger, and easy to install. Good video!!

Also balancing would remove the excess stress. I’m sure that had a lot to do with the failure. Hope you decide to keep working on it. I want to see it rev up and run!

I looked into similar design. The crank journals on my design had splines like a drive shaft so instead of welding the journals they are thermally pressed in (journals are frozen in a freezer and the other material is heated. Then you slip the two in and they are joined just factor in the thermal expansion of the metal) there is a hack i do for balancing cranks but ita hard to explain in text. Ita just putting the crank on rollers and the heaver parts fall down. Kinda like balancing a bicycle wheel but more presice. That should solve the issues. I honestly thought the bearings would fail before the crank. Now i know. Great job guys i love it

In 1961 a friend named Manfred Filsinger who raced for NSU hand-built a needle bearing crank using the best available metals in Germany. Was it worth it?? His winning record in B class auto cross and many more events proved it superior and those 4 Weber carbs on that screaming rear engine 4 cylinder NSU TT 1000 sure didn’t hurt . One of the best handling cars ever made.

i thought the engine sounded like it needs a higher rpm idle because the crank's rotating mass is a lot less, would need a heavier than stock flywheel to compensate

Dude i love this show, it’ll be the first ever RU-vid channel I buy merch from

My first thought was to cut race grooves in crank and con rods, then just place balls from bearings in the groves and bolt together.

YEEHHH...BALL BEARINGS IN KRANSHAFT AND CROMIUM IN CILINDERS in 1960, a German DKW engine, had bearings in the crankshaft and connecting rod, but it was pressed with great force and the bore interference was large in hard cast steel. The interference was so much that the force to dismount was greater.

If you got an old block and cut away the sides so as to leave the crank main bearings sitting high, it would give you better access to weld the crankshaft and it would be streight at the same time. Great project.

Crank back together, drill through weights & bearing ends. use pins weld pins in place

Now to get the cams on bearings with rollers on both the valve taps and the rockers. One of the highest friction points in the motor is the cams … they always get so hot and robs horsepower so much force is needed to turn these things

I was wondering how this would work for years..this is exciting!!

Look at lawn boy 2 stroke lawn mowers. Pressurized needle bearings in half moon shells for the rods and crankshaft

Lighter crankshaft means less stored rotation energy. Use a heavier flywheel to fix idle issue.

Stock crank, over bore main journals, thick hardened steel outter races, needle bearings.

I've done this before, you need to make each part of the crankshaft mate using a square or keyed end that inserts into an equivalent recess on the other, this way, they "lock" into place, then you put a bolt through to tighten them. :)

Carroll Shelby did the same thing in the 1960s, what he found was, the engine would crank over slightly faster, but it didn't make any more horsepower, or Torque. He concluded, that the bearings run in an oil film, therfore as soon as the oil pressure comes up, the roller bearings have no advantage over regular bearings. Mr. Shelby did that on a Ford 302 engine. And used an engine dyno to measure horsepower and Torque before and after.

The dynamic stresses placed upon the crankshaft far exceed any welding that you did.

1970's era motorcycle engines used pressed together ball bearing crankshafts. For high performance duties the pressed together phases of the crankshaft had about 255% of the pressed journal. This was to stop the crankshaft going out of phase under high compressive combustion loads. Oil pressure failure did not mean a dead crankshaft. Very robust

You must machine and key the crank so that the ends lock together when bolted...that will solve the distortion problem.

Splines and a heated press fit on those connections might help. The spline would keep it from twisting and the heated press fit would help with the floppyness of the shaft. Then the welding is only holding them from slipping apart. But split rings might do better.

these guys are kinda impressive. Others will think themselves to be badasses because they buy fancy parts and build a motor out of it, these lads straight up built their own god damn crankshaft because they wanted to.. and it works. Absolutely impressive.

standard rod and crank bearings are considered "frictionless bearings" since the pressurized oil makes a barrier between the metals. thats why they are used. 2-stroke oil may lubricate the cylinder, but the wrist pins still had no lubrication

If I move to Russia, I want to work for him! As far as the oil problem, the ball bearings will do fine with splash oiling. Ball bearings would not have enough internal resistance to hold pressure. The pistons rely on oil shot into the bores by ports on the crankshaft rod bearings so it gets in by the oil control rings and the piston/rod pin.

Instead of welding the crankshaft, an alternative solution could involve machining male and female splines between each crankshaft saddle. This means creating grooves (male) and corresponding ridges (female) that fit together, providing a secure connection between the crankshaft sections. Additionally, special compression bearings would be used at the ends to ensure everything stays snug and aligned, reducing any wobbling issues. This approach aims to distribute the load evenly across the crankshaft, reducing stress concentrations that could lead to breakages. It requires careful engineering and machining to ensure precise fitment of the splines and proper alignment of the components. Overall, this method offers a potential solution without the need for welding, which could provide a more reliable and durable crankshaft design. Вместо сварки коленчатого вала, альтернативным решением может быть изготовление мужских и женских шлицев между каждой опорой коленчатого вала. Это означает создание канавок (мужских) и соответствующих выступов (женских), которые взаимно соединяются, обеспечивая надежное соединение между секциями коленчатого вала. Кроме того, в конце использовались специальные компрессионные подшипники, чтобы все оставалось плотно и выравнено, снижая возможные проблемы с вибрацией. Этот подход направлен на равномерное распределение нагрузки по всему коленчатому валу, уменьшая концентрацию напряжений, которые могут привести к поломке. Для его реализации требуется тщательная инженерная разработка и обработка материалов для обеспечения точного соответствия шлицев и правильного выравнивания компонентов. В целом, этот метод предлагает потенциальное решение без необходимости сварки, что может обеспечить более надежный и долговечный дизайн коленчатого вала.

Build a jig with the same bearing lobe pattern, and tighten it all down with a top lobe respective of engine. Little extra work, but you now have a jig for future mortifications of the same engine. ( Using some steel plate the minimum with required for rigidity, and bearing alignment. Then Machine a hole for the respective ball bearing. Cut the the plate at the center of the hole, then drill and tap for respective fasteners on hand to rejoin the two. Bolt everything on the crank tightly, and now weld that to another steel plate rigid enough to prevent warping. May be easier said then done, but would be my approach at a Jig.)

Most dirt bike engines use needle bearings on the crank pin and ball bearings on the shafts. Except for KTM bikes they use a plain bearing which is superior last at least four times longer and allows higher rpm.

Solid bearings don't allow oil flow and home made cranks don't have oil passage holes so it locks up

Its not getting oil to the pins in the connecting rod. Thats why they use those kinda of bearings. Theyre channeled to let it pump oil up the connecting rod to the pin.

Would you ever revisit this idea with modifications? I second using roller bearing. As to the crankshaft, tighter tolerances with a press fit, then drill and pin each point of connection to prevent unwanted rotation?

WORST THAN FAILURE IS NOT TO TRY. Plasiva Trusia ! ! ! Greetings from Sydney Australia ( Planet Earth )

In WW2 roller bearings were tried but had problems with oil pressure amongst other problems on aircraft engines.

You should try the Alunium Crankshaft with ball bearing as your first experiment was a definite improvement in energy output.

I enjoyed the experimental venture. Maybe before welding reinforce with keyway. Just an idea

Don't weld the crank. Press it together. Just like a needle bearing two stroke. Don't press too far! Easy does it! 🙂😅🥰

You could use woodruff keys to hold everything in place, then weld it together. You could also drill the main bearings to get more oil to them. The rod bearing aren’t going to get oiled though.

Guinea Piggery. LOL My vocabulary never stops growing watching this crazy bunch. Love it.

Some mentioned a key way, which I also thought would have been much better and yet you should have double pinned along the sides of the pieces , or one pin through the center of the pieces from the bottom or side perpendicular to the crankshaft connections, and it probably would have stayed together, Try it again and see what happens.

It may have lasted a lot longer if there was more than just the welds holding the crankshaft in that if the joints that should not move were keyed in some way, like on an electric motor, it would have been more than just welds transferring the torque. This should enable more extensive testing. The only other thing I can think of is some sort of lower engine lubrication such as a simple spray bar made out of a metal pipe. This would help ensure cylinder compression and a better chance of engine survival for future experiments.

A lot of guys would just get a Lada crank from the junkyard, but I love the fact that you guys are nuts enough to even TRY such a thing!

Omg 😆 This guy is great ! He actually is very knowledgeable and is doing a lot of RD which is something early engineers should have been faced with

Use needle bearings on regular crankshaft. Just machine crankshaft So you can fit the needles between the bearing surfece and main and conecting rod caps🍻 By doing this the oil distribution will remain and u still have roller bearings.

I really want to know what Russian phrase translates to "guinea-piggery".

Watch Allen millyards videos on his motorbike engines and how he fits his roller baring cranks together

This is just awesome. I've wondered in the back of my mind sometimes, if this was possible, how might it operate... etc etc...

I love looking at coments for this channel. So much intelligence wide ranging knowledge from comment leavers

Rebuild it like a kawasaki s1 4 cylinder crank, it's completely pressed together, it's not 1 piece, I'll bet you could work with that if you knew what I was talking about

SPG use to build a roller crankshaft for the VW air cooled engine it was awesome !

I've often thought about doing that and wondered why we still use Babbit bearings when bearing material, ball, roller, etc. has come a long way, but so have Babbit bearing material. You could swap out your bearings no need to do clearances. I suppose balancing the crank, rods, and bearing might be more difficult. Anyway, I was glad to see it work. You need better welds, or another way to piece together the crankshaft.

If you lookup , barkas, or framo of wartburg , you'll see that most of them have a little 2 stroke engine in it which actually have a krankshaff with bearings. especially wartburg was a pretty popular car back in the day.

You should have looked at how 2 stroke outboard engines have their crankshaft bearings installed.

All this man needs is a budget and we can revolutionise everything, cars, cheese gratets whatever. These guys can do it.

You made a 180 degree crank. That´s for high reving engines. What´s the original? 90 degrees? Try to bore out holes, through the counterweight, and pin it/those, with hardened pins, about 1/3 of the diameter (of the cranc pin). These should keep the pin in place. Then secure them with a tack. After that, try an induction heater, to "soften out" the tacks. These are the ones to crack first, because the weld hardens when cooling. Think it will work?

Great videos Always Great mechanic /teacher Good students Nice to see t work

1970 s Marine outboards come with needle bearings in a two stroke engine but it runs with gas oil mix and it smokes like Hell

Try different kind off assembly of crankshaft like thermal one. Warm one and freeze another element

Aside from shock loading tapered roller bearings may work somehow IDK, I do know one thing it wouldn’t take much to turn the rotating assembly. Ball bearings can’t take the lateral loading of a tapered bearing but I doubt either can take the shock loading

Should have used splash oiled connecting rods and removed the bearing seals. This way it's all splash lubrication bearings included except for the overhead cam... no mod should be necessary for that as the crank oil galleries are blocked by the bearing races then straight to the camshaft. And of course a better weld on the crank.

Nice concept. Thinking instead of round journal ends if they were machined square this would mean that welding was just acting to retain them in one plane with little force. Also a tiny drilled and tapped hole in the throw arms and into the square journal ends would also work and remove the need for welding

All 2 stroke and some Porsche engines have roller cranks. The big end rod bearings are ball or roller. I've never seen needle bearings used anywhere on the crankshaft as others have suggested. I'm sure there is a problem (load range?) doing so or it would be done.

You could secure it with key ways and counter sunk bolts.

you could take the "needles" or pins out of a needle bearing and split the outer race and then use a standard crankshaft.

I know things are a little crazy over there. I hope everybody is doing all right, happy and healthy, I want to see you guys making more content.