crank up

Verb

crank up (third-person singular simple present cranks up, present participle cranking up, simple past and past participle cranked up)

1. To start something mechanical, an act that often used to involve cranking.
   • Let's crank up the old motorcycle and take it for a spin.
2. (idiomatic, reflexive) To muster up the mental energy to do something.
   • I kept thinking: this has nothing to do with my interests, with what I believe is a desirable subject for literature. I was doing it as a performance. I kept cranking myself up to perform, to meet the demands of the genre. I know this sounds terribly inartistic.1976 August 14, John Mitzel, Richard Hall, “The Whodunit Writer: Why He Dun It”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 7, page 7
3. (idiomatic, slang) To prepare (something).
4. (idiomatic) To increase, as the volume, power or energy of something.
   • He cranked up the volume to 11.
   • And it was not until Ryan Shawcross's towering header was cleared off the line by Danny Murphy on the stroke of half-time that Stoke started to crank up the pressure and suggest they were capable of getting back into the match.2010 December 28, Marc Vesty, “Stoke 0 - 2 Fulham”, in BBC
5. To describe in praiseworthy terms; to promote.
   • Was the great machine ever what it was cranked up to be?2003, Chris Jenks, Transgression
   • Let's hope your ol' buddy Majors is all he's cranked up to be, for we're about to introduce him to what you yanks refer to as hard ball.2004, Michael Pinchot, Panamanian Tundra, page 66
6. (intransitive, slang) To inject heroin.