Ok, after much discussion and tooing and froing I was convinced by several reputable parties that I ought to at least have a go at a self fix on the crankshaft of the beast. One of those reputable parties was my wife who suggested $200.00 was a much better fix than $2000.00.

It is a bit of a gamble, but we have all agreed its worth a shot. So having pulled the necessary bits off its time to rebuild…

After phoning 15 different wreckers this morning I think I finally managed to pick up the last harmonic balancer in the universe. Of course it was located in Midland, an hour’s drive from where we live (then again most places are close to an hours drive from where we live!)

A bit of cleaning and fiddling and we were ready to fix that crank.

Did I mention that I have all the mechanical skills of a ‘betty crocker’? I was never that interested in mechanics, (a car was nothing but a means of transporting surfers and lugging surfboards) but with necessity being the mother of invention here I am trying to figure it out.

Here’s a pic of the crankshaft keyhole ready for work. (For some reason you need to enlarge these images to see them properly). Mark, my farmer mate from across the street reckons its not too bad… ‘You got off light Hamo!’

I’d hate to see ‘bad’! Adam, the bloke who lives opposite us reckons he did the same on his Commodore, fixed it with Devcon and all was well…

And here’s the crank with key in place and the magical ‘Devcon’ stuff applied to keyway.

I’ll probably let it dry overnight before a bit of filing and then re-assembling. Also, here’s a plug for the local Mobil Mechanic who let me borrow his 45ml socket to get the crank nut back on. Good blokes those fellas at Mobil Mindarie!

I have heard of people driving for ages on these fixes. Then again it might all go pear shaped in no time at all… We’ll see what happens…

I have managed to strike a lease deal with the Baptist churches for a new top the range cruiser that’ll see me tossing the car in 3 months anyway so hopefully all will be well between now and then…