The aim of this paper is to explore the dynamical response of a rotating shaft with a cracked transverse section. This complex problem is distilled down to the study of a very comprehensive mechanical system composed of two non-cracked rigid bars connected with a nonlinear bending spring that concentrates the global stiffness of the cracked shaft. The switching crack model is presented as a specific case of the EDF-LMS family of models and adopted to describe the breathing mechanism of the crack. By analyzing the system equilibrium equations, we show that the stiffness change when the crack breathes leads to shocks with velocity jumps and coupling between the transverse oscillations. The linear stability of the periodic solutions is examined based on the Floquet’s theory. Nonlinear dynamics tools such as Poincaré maps and bifurcation diagrams are used to unveil the system oscillations characteristics. Many well-known features due to the crack presence have been observed, but some unexpected responses are noticed like chaotic behavior. This can be confidently attributed to the abrupt change of the structure stiffness with the breathing crack. It has also been observed that with the super-harmonic resonance phenomenon, the increase of static deflection accompanied by that of the first two harmonics amplitudes are good indicators of a propagating crack presence.