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Does anyone know anything about a crank walk?

Look at your serpentine belt attached to the crank, if the belt wobbles when running, thats crank walk. I think.......or somethin...

I had an oldsmobile cut supreme back in the days that wasnt walkin but it was goin' 1000 miles and runnin' type of thing. It was wobblin kinda bad, but she still held to 264k
 
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I am pretty sure it is when your crankshaft (inside the engine) moves due to high power. and destroys quite a few bearings among other things. someone please correct me if i am wrong.
 
Its out of spec side to side movement of the crank. All cranks have a certain amount they are spec'd to move. More than that is crank walk.

On 7bolt DSMs (the most infamous crank walkers) Crank walk causes the thrust bearing to wear out and causes a plate to hit the crank angle sensor which is what shuts the car off.
 
fordsvt98 said:
Look at your serpentine belt attached to the crank, if the belt wobbles when running, thats crank walk. I think.......or somethin...
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Can someone clarify? Couldnt a wobbling pulley also be one that has gone bad, IE damping one which gets old and rubber deteriorates?

My belt moves from side to side, but pulley looks like it is to blame, any way to test for crank walk or just see if the pulley is bad? (6cyl mtx 128k miles). I can take a video, but seems that the pulley straightens out above 1500-2k rpms.
 
Crank walk is when the crank moves fore and aft in the engine, putting strain on the thrust bearings. It is caused by a defective block with which the cylinder bore isn't quite square with the crank journals so the crank tends to be forced either forward or backward from where it should be.

This was an occasional problem on small block Chevrolets. It is very rare on other engines. With today's production control I would think this would be a problem from the past. I highly doubt a Duratec could have this problem.

And the biggest problem from crank walk wasn't thrust bearing wear, it was thrown rods on a high rev shift, especially with a stiffer than stock clutch.
 
A 'walking' crankshaft is a crankshaft that moves too much inside the engine. This is also known as excessive thrust bearing play. The movement is usually due to the crankshaft not fitting inside its bearings correctly. While not bad for the crankshaft, the movement can place excessive or uneven loads on the bearings, causing premature failures.


And, I will also add that 99.99999999% of "crank walk" motors, are also Manuals. Automatics do not usually develop any symptoms of it.
 
the mechanic that is working on my car said when shifting hard to 2nd gear the engine and the tranny twist so it feels like it's not in gear. Is that possible? I haven't driven it yet cuz it's still in the shop. I got a oem svt clucth installed , new flywheel, master cylinder, and tranny. What could that issue be? :shrug:
 
crankwalk.jpg
 
s.rich06 said:
the mechanic that is working on my car said when shifting hard to 2nd gear the engine and the tranny twist so it feels like it's not in gear. Is that possible? I haven't driven it yet cuz it's still in the shop. I got a oem svt clucth installed , new flywheel, master cylinder, and tranny. What could that issue be? :shrug:
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Could be bad engine mounts/roll restrictors
 
Big Jim said:
Crank walk is when the crank moves fore and aft in the engine, putting strain on the thrust bearings. It is caused by a defective block with which the cylinder bore isn't quite square with the crank journals so the crank tends to be forced either forward or backward from where it should be.

This was an occasional problem on small block Chevrolets. It is very rare on other engines. With today's production control I would think this would be a problem from the past. I highly doubt a Duratec could have this problem.

And the biggest problem from crank walk wasn't thrust bearing wear, it was thrown rods on a high rev shift, especially with a stiffer than stock clutch.
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After reflecting on my response I realized that I mixed Crank Walk with Cam Walk. Crank Walk is the crank moving fore and aft in the block. Most of the time it can be attributed to worn thrust bearings (or related crank wear). It can also be attributed to extreme clutch pressures and the very small but immense pressure to walk on hard shifts, especially at high RPM. I have broken cranks and thrown rods from this problem. A 4200 lb clutch was great for hooking up, but it was hell on the crank.

Cam Walk was a problem with some Chevrolet blocks when a roller cam was installed. It didn't matter with flat tappet cams. If the block was slightly misbuilt, it could allow for Cam Walk. Cams don't usually have much need for thrust control. If you had a block that encouraged Cam Walk and installed a roller cam, you tended to have unusual cam wear problems. Iskenderian even went so far as to provide instructions to test for Cam Walk before installing one of their roller cams. The recommendation if you found that you had such a block was to not install a roller cam in it.
 
So how do you get rid of a crank walk. In my car it's hard to shift gears. And i can't get into gear at high rev. And i jus had a new clucth put in. new flywheel, slave cylinder and master cylinder
 
I doubt that you are experiencing crank walk. You can check by applying a large pry bar to the crank pulley and seeing if you can move the crank significantly fore and aft (or on a transverse mounted engine, right to left). It would need to be significant to cause what you are experiencing.

If you do have crank walk, you need to pull the pan for inspection. With a little luck, you can replace the main bearing that also serves as the thrust bearing. More likely is that you need to replace the crank and all the bearings (rods and mains). You will probably need to pull the engine to do so.

I'm guessing that you have air in the hydraulic clutch linkage that needs to be bled. Unless your mechanic checked for excessive crank fore and aft movement, shame on him for making that diagnosis.
 
Is this like the boardwalk in Myrtle beach? I was there last week...it was cool as he!!. Tons of seafood.....powerful drinks....the ocean....it rawked.
 
check your bolts, on the shifter housing, under the shifter boot. Check your links.

Just pull it up....and take a look. This one dude had all bolts loose and the shifter was flopping around in there. His excuse was...."I dont know what to do."

If those bolts are loose, you may have a lil problem getting into gear.
 
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