How do you tell the difference between a cast or steel crank?

If its a 440 crank, one way to tell them apart is to examine the crank for a raised up cast "440" on one of the counterweights, not stamped in but raised. If you find that, it is cast. The other way is to look at the seperating lines but that is difficult to explain here (better in a photo). Of course, if you have the original balancer, it will be thick and have "440 cast only" or something like that on it.

The first answer was the best. A cast crank will have squared-off counterweights and a number 440 cast onto the edge of the first conterweight. It's quite an easy ID. Or you could go to www.440Source.com and look at their stock crank pictures.

R.