Has anybody any advice on how I can obtain a replacement crankshaft for my poorly CS Oliver Mk3 replica?
I have 2 CS Olivers one that I have had a long while and one that is a more recent acquisition. The earlier one is a great running engine and the later one was still being run in when it got very unhappy and, on striping it down, it was clear that the shaft had cracked across the inlet hole. This was most probably due to the shaft being left dead hard and the spirol oil control feature leaving a very sharp stress raiser from where the crack seemed to emanate. I just put the engine away and forgot about it but now having found it again in the back of a draw I would like to get it running again. some research has shown that these engines have a bit of a reputation for shaft cracks but I would guess that this stems from a bad batch of shafts as none of the later ones in our club have had a problem.
It is also the case that the CS version is not a like for like copy of an original Oliver but has been redesigned in metric so that none of the other copies, all in inches like the original, can be a source of spares for the CS versions.
It is not impossible that I can make a replacement shaft but it is not a simple job.