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Wed Dec 31, 2008 4:31 pm

I am putting together my crankshaft on my 36 horse and have read that the rods should fall freely when torqued. All my rods drop straight down, but one of them stops at about 4o-clock on one side and about 8 oclock on the other side. I have tried tapping on the cap, but cannot improve the situation. In the manual it says they should drop freely but does that mean all the way to six? Other than stopping at those points it turns freely and drop nice and slow. Any ideas?
--Dan

Wed Dec 31, 2008 5:12 pm

Take it apart and find the speck of dirt.

Wed Dec 31, 2008 5:39 pm

They should fall free and not bind anywhere...........they can fall slow but you should feel no hitches while rotating 360 degrees...............take it apart and clean the rod and the back of the bearing and try again...I find its usually a little piece of dirt or a burr on the inside of rod itself.....something as small as a piece of shop rag lint can cause this.........sometimes you can switch rods from journal to journal and be ok.

Thu Jan 01, 2009 10:51 am

volksworker wrote: They should fall free and not bind anywhere...........they can fall slow but you should feel no hitches while rotating 360 degrees...............take it apart and clean the rod and the back of the bearing and try again...I find its usually a little piece of dirt or a burr on the inside of rod itself.....something as small as a piece of shop rag lint can cause this.........sometimes you can switch rods from journal to journal and be ok.

Thanks for the advice. I removed the rod, cleaned it up and reinstalled, there was a slight improvement but it still was not falling as far as the others. So, I swapped out rods. Did some tapping to fix alignment, and rotated it several times. It now drops to where it should be.
--Dan

Thu Jan 01, 2009 11:09 am

Yeah, that usually works for me. Dont forget to peen those rod nuts........Im always forgetting to do that and then I catch it as Im laying the crank in. Lets see a pic when you get it installed.......

Thu Jan 01, 2009 9:06 pm

volksworker wrote: Yeah, that usually works for me. Dont forget to peen those rod nuts........Im always forgetting to do that and then I catch it as Im laying the crank in. Lets see a pic when you get it installed.......

Here are some pics of the crank in situ. The first pic is of the crankshaft timing gear which does not have the typical two punch marks. Instead there is one on the recess which matches with the "O" on the cam timing gear. Is this typical of 36 horse engines?
Another thing, when I am using Gaskecinch for the case halves. I applied it to both sides as instructed an allowed it to set for five minutes as instructed. On both sides it dried comletely. It wasn;t even tacky when I put the case halves together. Is that right or am I looking at future oil leaks?
--Dan