Crank shaft replacment

[JeepTrouble]

How hard is it to replace a crankshaft?

[MagicRat]

The engine must be removed from the vehicle.
Thats the hard part.
Once its out and on an engine stand, its not so bad. With the engine up side down, you remove the harmonic balancer (pully), water pump, cam chain and sprockets,and oil pan.
Then, inside the engine, you remove the oil pump, 7 main bearing caps and 6 connector rod caps, then the crankshaft can be removed.

The tricky part of replacing a camshaft is the machine shop work. The 13 bearing journals must be smooth and prefectly round, which is what a machine shop does. However, the corresponding 12 bearing saddles ( 7 on the block plus 6 connector rods) must have a matching roundness. One needs sophisticated measuring instruments (an inside micrometer) to tell for sure.
If you are lucky, the block does not need machining; all you need is the correct new bearing shells. However, if the bearing saddles are screwed up, which is likely if your crankshaft is bad, then the entire engine must be disassembled and repaired by a machine shop.

[DonSor]

I don't know what kind and what year car. Replacing crankshaft is a major undertaking. While you got everything open you might as well do rings, bearings valve job, etc. Have you thought about just getting a good remanufactured long block? Unless you really want to do that kind of a job.

[JeepTrouble]

Yeah like i wanna do all that!! ha haha hahahaha, i think i'll just throw it away, or use the damn thing for spare parts, it's a 1988 cherokee larado, everythings great, except that....... but oh well, shoulda knew when i bought it.....