Crankshaft, race crankshaft
and
crippelshaft

We have been building these since 1984, when the 24 Hr 2CV Races in Spa-Francorchamps began.

We have build all the tools needed for dissasembling and assembling, to overhaul the 2CV, Visa and GS/GSA crankshafts. The journals surfaces are allways finest polished, to reduce friction as much as possible. Fitted in the crankcase you can turn it easily with your 2 fingers! This shows impressively how near perfect the out of round is corrected! Those people who have rebuild some 2CV or Visa engines know that this very rarely occurs with standard exchange or original replacements crankshafts! Thats the reason why we call them "crippelshaft"!

A racing crankshaft is build up starting from a new one, but also possible from a used one, only when it's in an excellent condition, with only "a few kilometers on the journals"!
All options are available: Our experience in this field is out of reach for other companies!
You can use this experience in "YOUR CRANKSHAFT", so enquire directly! You get what you want, and what is necessary for your purpose without any knicks-knacks.

For normal purpose, exchange crankshafts can be found in our Spare Parts List.
Technical explanations on the how and why about crankshaft mods and improvements can be found in related publications, technical literature and magazines.

We supply only special cranks to customer specifications.
What we do on a crank is :

• Complete dismanteling, dimensional and wear checking at con rods and main journals.
• CONRODS: Removal of old bearings and bushings. Pressing in new special massive bronze bushings in the small ends, rivet them, followed with fine boring to very close H6 bore diameter tolerance .
• CRANKSHAFTS WEBS & JOURNALS: Timing sprocket, thrust bearing and gear box primary shaft bushing removal. All journals surfaces are checked for scratching, wear, dimensions and tolerances.
• ULTRASONIC CLEANING: Of crankshaft parts, especially the very important cleaning of the hollow bored conrods journals!
• ASSEMBLING: All parts are assembled. Primary shaft bushing or needdle bearing pressed in. Then the most important part follows: The run out of round correction! Typical value are in the range between "zero" (philosophic value: zero doesn't exist in reality!) and 1,5 hundredst of a millimeter (not inches!).
• DELIVERING: The crankshaft is assembled and with a final recheck, it is delivered including his flywheel bolts, bushing and shaft seals. With the shafts seals you can indicate what you wish: Standard are normal shaft seals, but you can also get the very better silicon or viton seals at flywheel side (2CV-cranks). At fan side you can get "normal", but also better ones: Improved with dust lip or Viton with dust lip. This only depends on how much you want to spend!

We have indicated that a lot of options are available, from a standard (better than new!) unit to a full racing crank that can easily take high loads and 9000 rpm without break down or strafing.

AVAILABLE OPTIONS:

• 2 CV, VISA, GS/GSA cranks: Stronger connecting rods.
• 2 CV: Stronger crankshaft middle part. Multi layer trimetal bearing at conrods big ends for high load (heavy duty) and high RPM abuse (VISA and GS/GSA are allways fitted with such bearings!).
• ALL: Checking and correction of parallelism in the two planes for small and big ends bore of connecting rods.
• OIL FLOW improvement at thrust bearing on 2 CV and VISA cranks. On a 2 CV crank also at rear bearing. On the GS/GSA additional oil supply to middle conrods journals at middle of crankshaft in the thrust bearing. This IMPROVES oil flow at conrod journals resulting in better lubrication/cooling of conrods big end.
• CONRODS: Oil routing change, so the piston dome cooling is very improved. An oil jet is necessary for this in the top of small ends. Radially the lubrication between big ends and crank web can be improved. ROUGH forged surfaces at the crank webs are finelly polished. Oil can better flow away and dont clog on the roughs surfaces.
• BALANCING: It's a world for itself with great profits: An engine that runs a lot more smoothly! Less friction lost, lower oil temps, more power and so on: No more comments are necessary about this or we would have to write a book about this!
  A "normal 2 CV crankshaft" is balanced at only 16 %, a Visa crank at even less! We can offer a more adequate 30 or 33% balancing and, thanks to modern computer aided dynamical balancing, offer a balancing precision with a resolution up to 0,1 gram (metric)!
  For sport and racing, we currently offer the following: Connecting rods are matched to the same translatoring, rotational and total balance and weights. This include finest polishing of the entire rod surfaces. That all results in that what we call: The hidden secrets of a smooth running engine!
• WEBS: They can be profiled such an airfoil! This greatly reduces the aerodynamical drag! But only in conjunction with an entire new balancing. For profiling the webs and counterweights we must remove some material and that dramatically changes the balance! Heavy metal plugs are needed to compensate for the loss in balance of the crank!

NEVER FORGET : THE WEAR STATUS OF A CRANKSHAFT CAN ONLY BE EVALUATED AFTER DISMANTLING AND THE CHECKING OF CONRODS JOURNALS CAN BE DONE!

What is done on our overhauled crankshaft:crippelshaft

2CV and VISA: Better than new!
All what is standard on the original Citroën serial crank. But we do it better, for example with massive special bronze bushing we fit in conrods small ends, instead the cheap rolled steel bronze backed bushing from serial crank! Finest polishing of all journals bearing surfaces. Better out of round correction!

For all options see above, and please be so friendly to send us a mail about your request wisches so we can propose you what make for you sense and what not!

To go in touch with us, please refer to our contact page!