# Crankshaft?



## wildfan1976 (Dec 6, 2010)

Why doesn't someone come up with a crankshaft with needle style connecting rod bearings and one piece connecting rods like and Arctic Cat Thundercat engine has? I believe that would this would get rid of most if not all connecting rod bearing failures in these Brute and Prarie motors.


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## Brute650i (Dec 17, 2008)

it wouldnt be worth the cost. I doubt any company would be able to recover R&D cost of making one and make it inexpensive to buy. 

If you keep dirt out and correct amount of oil in it then you should have no problems


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## NMKawierider (Apr 11, 2009)

When I was with Honda...some 35 years ago... we could rebuild top ends 3 or 4 times sometimes and still have the needle rod bearings in spec. It was however one of the reasons why honda engines didn't rev as fast. Weight


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## wildfan1976 (Dec 6, 2010)

I see your point there, but if it wasnt to expensive to do it could save money in the long run especialy if you had to put 2 or 3 cranks and or rods and bearings plus it would save on down time also. You could milk the oil and not have to worry as much about smoking the bearings out of it.


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## rmax (Nov 21, 2009)

i would like to find some one who could recondition the cranks an supply rod bearings to fit, i have 5 cranks with rods, an would donate one for somebody that would like to give it a try


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## BleednGreen68 (Apr 19, 2010)

If yer goin through rods and cranks all the time I'd say you have another prob. All the crank/rod failures i've done here at our dealership have been cause they sank it and injested mud or just didnt do maintenance. Alot of people on here, including me have lots of hours on our brutes with no crank or rod probs. With any motor, maintenance is key. If you go muddin or creek crossin, change yer oil often. Its all in how you ride it and take care of it. If Kawi saw a prob with this area they would have fixed it along time ago. Since this is pretty much the 6th straight yr for our brutes production run, dont see that happening anytime soon. Now I cant say that for the stupid diff seals. They havnt fixed that YET haha.


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## MeanGreenMan (May 24, 2010)

BleednGreen68 said:


> If yer goin through rods and cranks all the time I'd say you have another prob.


+1
I have the same original crank/rods on my '05 750. I keep my air box tight and filter clean. Always use synthetic engine oil as well. If you treat your quad well, then it will do the same to you. Simple.


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## wildfan1976 (Dec 6, 2010)

Im not a mudder but reading all the failures of the bottom end this idea just came to mind.


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## BleednGreen68 (Apr 19, 2010)

Well you got two kinds of people here. You got the guys that do trails, use their atv for work. And you got the guys that use it for mainly mudding and going through deep water. I am in both those catergories but I take those extra steps to keep my motor in tip top shape. I will tell you these motors are tough as nails since in my early years of owning my brute, I have hydro locked the motor 3 times badly, filled the crankcase with water all those times and the carbs full. After I get all the water out properly and as fast as I can, I have had no probs with my motor. Although I dont really do any extreme mudding anymore. No one wants to play with me anymore haha. Im not saying the other guys arnt takin care of their machines, just that kind of stuff is hard on ANY quad no matter what brand. There are way more brute owners on this site than any other quad brand. Turning huge tires with huge lift will break anything. Thats a lot of strain on a motor. One reason why I didnt do a lift or way too big tires. 27's are plenty for me for around here. The brutes are very strong atvs and are very reliable minus the diff seals and i've seen and read on here about electrical probs but what atv doesnt. I will say IMO, the brute is the best atv on here. Lookin at how many are modded extrememly shows what atv people choose. I have over 325hrs on mine and most of that was racing nasty mud runs with many first place trophies, trails, pullin heavy trailers that it shouldnt be pullin and plowin snow. I change oil every 20hrs and do the front and rear end oils every 40hrs. Mines an 05 so not as much electronics as the FI models. I wouldnt worry about cranks and rods in these atvs. Yer hearin the extreme situations. Just make sure if you or anyone is buyin a used brute, make sure you get as much history as possible and check it over good. If its got huge tires and stuff like that and beat up, probably been ran hard and put away wet. That goes for ANY atv you buy. If you do plan on gettin a brute and doin muddin, i'd just get an updated/performance crank/rods and stick with stock size engine or go slightly bigger. There are guys on here with heavily modded motors that will chime in on that subject since I havnt dealt with big bore brutes much.


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## skid (Jun 18, 2009)

I'm not going to rag on anybody about how to keep your machined maintained cause I've lost 2 motors now and would love to be able to do something with the 2 paper weights I now own.


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## subforeman (Jan 2, 2010)

MeanGreenMan said:


> If you treat your quad well, then it will do the same to you. Simple.


Exactly!!!


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## rmax (Nov 21, 2009)

*cranks*



BleednGreen68 said:


> If yer goin through rods and cranks all the time I'd say you have another prob. All the crank/rod failures i've done here at our dealership have been cause they sank it and injested mud or just didnt do maintenance. Alot of people on here, including me have lots of hours on our brutes with no crank or rod probs. With any motor, maintenance is key. If you go muddin or creek crossin, change yer oil often. Its all in how you ride it and take care of it. If Kawi saw a prob with this area they would have fixed it along time ago. Since this is pretty much the 6th straight yr for our brutes production run, dont see that happening anytime soon. Now I cant say that for the stupid diff seals. They havnt fixed that YET haha.


i do not have diff seal problems, i have rear output seals go out regurarly,an ikeep around 6 in stock. my 06 659i is still a virgin no engine work with 900 hrs of mud an water, the cranks i refer too come from engines i have rebuilt for others. we run 5 brutes in the family an i maintain all of those plus some more on the side. our brutes get oil changes every other ride front diff every ride, i have plenty of time on my hands being a retired aircraft tech, an very aware of maintance requirements, an not to knock your dealership, but the local dealer here is to say the least full of sh-t, they sold my daughter in law 90w gear oil to put in her rear diff on her brute said to use in front an rear diffs. so i dont put much trust in them. i just finished a engine that was rebuilt from dealer put it was put together out of time an had value strick. they said it was fine an could not do anything else to it but to install new carbs. so to make long story short, 2 new values set the cams right an its running strong, new carbs not required. this same dealer charges around 90/hr shop rate, an offered me 15/hr to work part time, lol i think their requirments to be a tech is a hammer an cresent wrenchso like i said not to knock your d ship, but when i hear that word it makes me want to get up on my soap box an vent.
almost forgot, main reason for my orginal post was to see if anyone with the tooling an knowledge would like to try to refirb a brute crank. thanks


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## BleednGreen68 (Apr 19, 2010)

Dont blame ya for knockin dealerships. We are just a very small dealership who values our customers. Most bigger dealerships would rather have your money and boot you out the door. Treatin customers good brings them back. We've been here 31yrs sellin kawi. I'd say they need to screen their mechanics and sales people better haha. They give the honest, good dealerships a bad name.


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## wildfan1976 (Dec 6, 2010)

I think any reputable crankshaft grinding shop could easily refubish the crank at a decent price. It's just a matter of finding undersize bearings for the rods. I think with a little reserch you could probably find an automotive application that takes the same bearing with the choice of different undersizes.


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## BleednGreen68 (Apr 19, 2010)

Good way to make some money since no one has done this yet.


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## wildfan1976 (Dec 6, 2010)

I did some research tonite and found the bearings from an Isuzu 1.5L from 1985-89 has close to the same dimesions as these kawi twins. You would have to have the crank ground and the connecting rod big ends resized to match the clearances which is .001 to .0025 thousands difference but I think it would work, but I'm not positve so dont take my word for it these bearings come in standard and two undersizes availible.

P.S. 1981-1988 Toyota 1.5L Has the exact dimesion for the rod bearings that I was looking for the only dimension I dont have is the width of the bearing then i could give a defenite answer if someone could get this measurement with a micrometer this would be great.

One more thing I need the measurement of the notch in the bearing that holds it from spinning in the rod prefer it to be in millimeters.


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## HeadC1 (Feb 11, 2009)

Blambert on HL sells turned cranks with rod bearings for $150 shipped. I kown because I just got one from him, nice looking work. He shipped it to me with rods and the new bearings already torqued down.


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## rmax (Nov 21, 2009)

like to know how it turns out for you, an how to get in touch with him as i do not go on hl any more


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## rrsi_duke (Mar 1, 2010)

HeadC1 said:


> Blambert on HL sells turned cranks with rod bearings for $150 shipped. I kown because I just got one from him, nice looking work. He shipped it to me with rods and the new bearings already torqued down.


since he has put them on HL and now HeadC1 you have one i guess i'll go ahead and say that so far "knock on wood" i have around 40 miles on his crank work and it is running like a top. he was really good to deal with and the shipping was fast and when we got it back we toke it apart to check it out and everything looks great and the bearings are a lot thicker than stock and not that dang cooper crap either.


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## BigIdaho (Jan 10, 2015)

There is a reason why Kawasaki didn't fix the problem. It was engineered to fail. So you have to buy another $164 rod $400 crank and 4 $7 bearings and it is almost identical to the Ninja ex650 rod? they made that motor for years with Babbitt bearings. Why change the design if it is cost effective to manufacture cheap and easy? When your motor breaks you have no other choice to buy OEM parts again? Kawasaki LOVES it when things break. so does every manufacture in the world. Make more on parts than the machine?


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## Al1959 (Feb 6, 2015)

I'm in the process of trying a cleveite CB-1361P rod bearing for a 1990 to 1997 Toyota 1.6L engine the width is tad wider but should work. Also looks like a GM- Isuzu 98 cid Cleveite part #1478P and a Honda 1991 to 1993 1.6L cleveite part# CB-1478AL could work also. The crank will have to be turned and the rod with have to be resized.


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## racin_rhino (Sep 5, 2012)

How did those clevis numbers work out?
There was a guy in Tennessee that I had been getting my cranks from but with the cdn dollar taking a dive it's not cost effective anymore. Would love to be able to take the cranks I have to a local machine shop.


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## ooo7brute (Nov 2, 2015)

Hey guys im installing new rod bearings and a crank on my brute and i noticed when i put the rods on they were really tight is this normal ???


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## NMKawierider (Apr 11, 2009)

bigbrute91 said:


> Hey guys im installing new rod bearings and a crank on my brute and i noticed when i put the rods on they were really tight is this normal ???


No, see my post on your other thread.


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