Stihl MS362 crankshaft not turning freely after installing new bearing.

[lchas]

...And my MS362 rebuild continues to creep along at a snails pace.

I finally got the crankcase reassembled with new bearings. I used the hot and cold method. I heated the bearings and slid them onto a chilled crankshaft, then chilled that unit and seated it into a heated clutch half of the crankcase, then chilled that whole assembly and pushed on the heated remaining case half and bolted it all together. It seemed to work great! I was very impressed, but as I was bolting the case together I noticed that the crankshaft had become very stiff to turn. I wasn't concerned as I remembered hearing somewhere that this is common and that you just need to wack the crankshaft back and forth a few times with a soft-faced hammer in order to free things up after assembly. NO LUCK! It doesn't seem to matter how much I rap on the crank in either direction with my dead-blow mallet. No improvement! Any thoughts?

waiting to hear the problem as I just broke one apart, was afraid the beatings (Ceramic) would be junk but they are fine!!

 

[12fergus]

That would spread the crank counterweights thus bending the crank but it wouldn`t have any effect on moving the bearing over.

The bearing on the flywheel side can't move out,as it is bottomed out on the case.The bearing on the clutch side can move in both directions as it doesn't bottom out.
In the installation process the pressure applied can close the gap of the crank counterweights slightly.

 

[Yukon Stihl]

A hammer is the original tool
Knowing how hard to hit something,and where to hit it is the key.
If it wasn't for hammers we wouldn't have any other tools.