RE: Rod Reconditioning or Not?

[Rich Kinsley <rlkinsley@xxxxxxxxx>]

When I built my engine I found that the cost of reconditioning the old 
rods was barely cheaper than the Eagle SIR6123CB rods. Plus they were 
115gms lighter, 50% stronger and came with the ARP fasteners included. 
Seemed like a no-brainer to me.

Rich Kinsley '64 Dodge Polara 4dr 318poly w/goodies

=====================================================================
Steve Charette wrote:
> 
> Tom,
> 	I would not arbitrarily replace the wrist pins - they are either
> good or bad.  I've personally never seen a lot of bad wrist pins.  And 
> if
> the rods are bent, you can usually read that in the bearings on 
> tear-down.
> 
> 	As far as rod reconditioning, I would base my decision on how you
> plan to use the motor.  If it's just a cruiser, it's probably fine.  If
> you're beating it up and down the 1320, I'd definitely have them
> reconditioned and install new bolts.  Rod bolts are only good for 3
> torquings - each time they are torqued they stretch a little and after
> repeated stretching they work harden and are prone to failure.
> 
> 	That said we used to build what we called "grenade motors".
> Basically pull it down (383, 413, 440, didn't matter), clean it up, 
> berry
> brush the cylinders, swap banks on the pistons, and put it back 
> together.
> Screw on a high volume oil pump and go racin'.  Funny, we never grenaded
> one.  Fastest one I had ran 11.40's in a 3200 lb Fleet Special with a
> hydraulic camshaft and a six-pack, of all things - shooting ducks all 
> the
> way through 3rd gear.  A couple of weeks after that we were pitted in 
> front
> of Mr. John Tedder hisself and after looking the car over he said "you
> should get rid of that six-pack".  I had a cast iron manifold and a 750
> Holley center section in the truck that we had cannibalized for parts 
> for
> the six pack - we had the 4bbl up and running before first round of
> eliminations.  We won both bracket two and "King of the Hill" that day.
> 
> 	I'm gonna have to find that picture and put it up on my Facebook
> page :)
> 
> 	Anyway, if you're going to have the rods completely reconditioned
> (new bolts, straighten, grind the caps/resize and the whole nine yards) 
> you
> may want to compare prices to a set of aftermarket H-beams.  I've been
> buying them on eBay when I can get 'em cheap ($250-$300 is my target 
> price
> range).  Have had equally good luck with Eagles and Scat.
> 
> SC
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Watters [mailto:tomwatters@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 3:23 PM
> To: 1962to1965mopars@xxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Rod Reconditioning or Not?
> 
> When I disassembled my '65 Block, #6 rod had spun bearing. I have a 
> spare
> rod from another engine, in sme condition as the other 7 rods that I 
> have.
> 
> I plan to turn the rod journals crank before I put it back together.
> 
> Should I just replace the wrist pins and use the rods as-is, or must 
> they be
> re-conditioned?  The block has about 80K miles on it.  The extra Rod I 
> have
> was reconditioned about 2000 miles before it was taken down.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> 



Rich Kinsley '64 Dodge Polara 4dr 318poly w/goodies


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