Hoyt explained it quite well. My Dad has been gone for a quarter of a century now, but I can remember him talking about in car crank grinding. He was a journeyman mechanic that was trained back in the 20’s and worked in the business until the 50’s. He said it was fairly common back in those days.
I remember going down to the shop with mom one Friday afternoon to pick him up after work. This was the late 40’s and we only had one car back then. After he washed up he showed me Ma Bell truck that he was working on. It still had the pan, Downers Grove Auto Parts had just finished ground the crank in place that afternoon.
A decade later in the late 50’s I got into the business my self but behind the parts counter not in the shop. In the five years working in Chevy dealerships and a couple of auto parts stores in the Chicago suburbs in place crank grinding had pretty much disappeared. In fact most all of my time from 12 or 13 years old until I was in my early 30’s was pretty much spent under the hood of some old hunk of iron since my dad and older brother were car nuts also.
I’d guess that about the only place that you would see a portable crank grinder now days might be the very rare swap meet find. You still see hard seat grinders every once in a while and last year I saw a boring head that was missing most of the parts.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny G
Sandwich, IL