Re: No Crankshaft 1975 Norton 850 Commando MKIII in 750 cran
B+Bogus said:
For the education of a total MKIII ignoramus, what are the differences between the 750, 850 and 850MkIII cranks?
To summarize, and repeat some of the already posted info,
750 and 850 (except MKIII) crankshafts are the same except for the flywheel. The 850 flywheel is heavier to counterbalance the heavier 850 pistons.
The MKIII crankshaft is wider from cheek-to-cheek, so won't directly fit earlier cases, has a longer drive side mainshaft to accommodate the electric start mechanism, and has 3/8" fasteners holding it together, instead of the 5/16" fasteners in the previous Commando crankshafts. It also has a slot machined into the timing side cheek to allow the use of a timing plug, but that has no real effect on interchangeability.
It's pretty easy to fit an earlier crankshaft into MKIII cases by putting shims in the cases behind the main bearings, and I've done that a couple of times. It's more difficult to fit the MKIII crank into the early cases, and no real reason to. If you machine the MKIII cheeks to narrow the crankshaft for the earlier cases, you lose the increased bending stiffness of the thicker cheeks, so you might as well just use an earlier crankshaft and ream the holes out to take the 3/8" fasteners. If you try to machine the inside of the early cases to fit the wider crankshaft, you make the already weak cases even weaker. Of course, if you just have the parts lying around and want to use them up, it is possible.
Plenty of differences between MKIII and earlier cases too, but that's another subject.
Ken