LSx Crank lock

[P10crew]

We made a few crank locks this morning. To enable locking the crank at #1 TDC. With the hopes that it will hold it at TDC during balancer install and final torquing.
The outer holes register on the bell housing dowels.
I'm not real keen on the crank locks that grab a ring gear tooth and with the aftermarket balancers having degree marks etched into them it will also make checking lifter preload very quick and negate the need to install a degree wheel.

 

[P10crew]

 

[ArrestMeRedZ]

That is sweet.

 

[P10crew]

Thanks RedZ
We made just this one from 6061 AL and 2 from A36 steel. We are going to see if the aluminum version will take final balancer bolt torquing. When water jetting parts the material costs are the minor part of the total cost. My buddy charges by total cut time. 6061 is about 1/3 the amount of cut time versus A36 of the same thickness. As an example the A 36 version was 25 minutes total and this 6061 part was 10 minutes. They have the choice of cut qualities but he runs parts like this for me right in the middle of the cutting speed range. Some parts where I need super high tolerance accuracy are
cut on the best cut quality and that is where it gets expensive fast.
We shall see what happens

 

[jims5600]

As a LS3 owner I applaud your work,very nice!
Jimmy

 

[P10crew]

Thanks man👊

 

[53' Stude]

Originally Posted by ArrestMeRedZ
That is sweet.



+1, very good work sir

 

[A_Harman]

Steel for me, please! Aluminum would be too prone to deformation after repeated uses.

 

[P10crew]

A_ that is one thing we are all set up to look at while doing final torque. We have a test indicator set up on the outer ends of the legs to watch deflection under load. It may very well end up being A36 but I want to see what happens. If we can use 6061 that will be very handy for us. And it will also allow us to fulfill our initial thoughts of sending them to our long time go to - Precision metal finishing in Grand junction for anodizing to add a level of Bling. If it ends up being the A36 he will yellow chromate them.

 

[P10crew]

So we had 3 indicators set up on the A end . One was looking at crank rotation.. the other 2 test indicators were set up to look at lock deflection at the extreme top of both outboard arms . Both outboard indicators saw maybe 1/4 thou but when the torquing force was relaxed they both returned to 0 hard zero.
The indicator that was set up as far out from center and as far away from center as I could get it reported 1/4 thou. movement and stayed there.

 

[Kira]

Does your company (LSX?) make cam/crank locking jigs for other engines?

 

[P10crew]

Kira nope I don't.

 

[bdcardinal]

Any plans on making more to sell?

 

[P10crew]

As most suspected. The center bolts peened the slot so steel is necessary to control this peening.
Bd cardinal I'm not sure it's worth the trouble. Stuff like this gets knocked off so fast it makes your head swim.
There is nothing like this on the market but as soon as you do anything like this the big 3 will knock it off with in a week if they see a market. I know from first hand experience. Kent Moore made the first flywheel locks for the LS line in probably 95 or 96 for all the dealers tool package. Right now there is about 75-80 different sources. Kent Moore's were very expensive and now you can probably buy one on flea bay for under $20