Engine – Day 12

So I pulled out the rebuilt rods the other day and discovered this so-called “balanced” set of rods was way off with 6g difference between the heaviest and the lightest.

Since they were rebuilt originals, it looks like they had already have some material removed, so getting the heaviest down to the lowest is practically impossible, and they are not as balanced as I usually aim for, which is within .5g of each other.

I started trying to get the heaviest one down, and ultimately had to shave off the tangs of #1 and #2 to get them within 2g of the lightest.

I tried to take metal off in as balanced a way as possible but having a 6g discrepancy was too much so I’m settling on where I ultimately came down to, which is 3 of them 2g more than the 4th.

I cleaned them all up, paying special attention to the threads of the bolts and nuts since they seemed to have a cosmoline like substance on them.

I had a set of Mahle rod bearings so I installed those, leaving the Silverline ones on the Chromoly 200K bolt rods I opted not to use.

With this build, I decided to follow the Wilson guide’s instructions to use white lithium grease on the bearings instead of the assembly lube I used on the 2019 build. Honestly, as slow as I’m moving on this, the white grease is a much better solution than anything thinner.

Blue loctite was used on all threads and nuts were torqued to 25ft/lbs, though I need to borrow someone else’s torque wrench since I’m not feeling confident in mine anymore.