Welding broken steel cranks.

I have a lovely 1930's set of bsa double fluted steel cranks on my EF Russ, but the left hand crank has formed a big-ol' crank (and I mean big) just above the pedal. Anyone any experience of welding cranks/using cranks that have been fixed in this way? The bike has been run fixed but could be set up with freewhee/gears Bad idea or worth a shot? .

I really don't want to loose these cranks, and bsa 5pins that are double fluted are pretty hard to come by.

Cheers,

Jeff

could you post a pic? so long as its welded properly it would be fine. does the crack go straight through the crank?

thing is you would need to weld up the entire crack, not just the surface for it to be sound.

totally doable though

i can do it for ya, pm me

HI people. Sorry fro delay. Here are is the crank in question.

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Crack runs most of the way through the crank, almost from one side to the other.

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the other side-you can see it coming through

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so what do we think, fixable? Would i need to split it all the way through and then weld it back on? I have no idea on this one.

thats fixable but you would need to cut a V in the the crack essentially. you would then weld it from the inside out and fill the V in. then just a matter of grinding it back to shape.

pretty easy if you can weld, impossible if you can't.

just find a metal fabricator, they should be able to do this for you

same sort of process as welding a pipe

Whats the white stuff in the back of the crank flute? Filler?

As above, a very good fabricator should be able to do this for you, not a lot of work, reckon (not LDN prices!) should set you back around the £60-90 mark (about 1.5 hours work).

Amazed it hasn't snapped off from use, shows the resilience of steel

As said above you will need to grind all the crack out, thats very important if you leave some it will crack again. Then chamfer it at around 45 degree, then weld several runs until its filled. You'll have to straighten it after.
Steel fabricator here, I'd say find someone to do it.