Crankshaft Failure - a remedy from 1964?

[Bob Culver]

This topic been extensively canvassed before. Judging by apparently infinite fatigue life of normal bearings, the size of bearings in powerful bike engines, the increased ratings of modern bearings, a ball race would be fine. A considerable potential cost saving (and maybe only one front roller need be new). The slight difficulty is arranging for positive clamping of the ball bearing. Other ball race engines such as BSA car adopt the arrangement. Cranks usually crack from the inside radii so the contribution of clutch pressure is questionable? Firing and inertia/centrifugal loads in an engine are vastly greater than most , including mechanics, suppose and tend to dwarf the occasional clutch load. With the front of crank more free I dunno if any hammering action on timing gears may occur.
(Dunno about the model which Edge had access to, but 1923 FN is as Seven)