Connecting rods have been modified

[anthracitedub]

While disassembling a 1200 for a r build I noticed two of the connecting rods had this modification.
While these rods won't be reused because of this hack, I was curious to see if anyone has an idea why someone would do this.
I'm taking a guess by thinking it has something to do with oiling... perhaps they thought this could help in some way?

[Howard 111]

I've never seen that one, but assume it's to allow more oil to get to the rod bearings.
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[raygreenwood]

Yes...its a legitimate modification....but thats not saying its done well or right.

Its designed to allow oil spray from the crank galleys....usually to cool the bottom of the piston head and wrist pin area. Kind of a poor mans piston squirter.

But I cannot be the judge of it totally because its not "just" a Volkswagen modification. Its been used by many engine builders in many cars over the years and where the oiling grooves go on different cranks will partly be in relation to where the oil ports/troughs are on that particular crank and where you desire to have the oil spray directed.

There was a VW factory service bulletin about where and how to make the notches on 2.0L type 4 engines. I will see if I can find it and link to it. Ray

Some more info here:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=319027

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=171098&highlight=rod+oiling+notch

On the STF:
http://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=95506&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

I can't for the life of me find the technicalservice bulletin right now...but its somewhere on this site.
Ray

[anthracitedub]

Cool, kinda thought so. It also had the larger type 3 oil pump installed.
The rest of the engine actually looks pretty good... standard crank and case, very little case wear, nice square boss heads.

Just gonna replace the rods and bearings, new rings go through the heads and call it done ( with all the proper clearances attained).

[Pruneman99]

Usually I've seen that done but with a single groove pointing towards the piston. Seems like the bottom two grooves wouldn't be effective, but maybe..

I wouldn't call it a hack necessarily, but maybe not done in the most effective manner. Did you happen to weigh them to see if they were balanced to the others without the mod?

[anthracitedub]

Thanks for the links, it looks like whoever did these rods got a little happy with the grinder. I thought a little about cleaning up the work and rebalancing them, but I do have another set of untouched rods.

Sad thing is, the rods have really nice wrist pin bushings in them, the pins fit good and would not need replacing.

[mark tucker]

when you just do 2 rods do the center rods and top and botom so they oil both sides of the piston 's...but I wouldent recomend it and doubt it does squat.especialy like that.

[raygreenwood]

[modok]

I think it's fine. It's not going to hamper the operation.
Those 40 horse rods, very hard to get the caps aligned right, checking and re-conditioning thus a PITA.
If they ARE good, USE EM! Less work, more play

[gears]

Shape and position are important for cooling piston bottoms, and those mods fail at both.
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[FeelthySanchez]

Some old-school features, native to small engines from the era of splash-lubed bottom ends:

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[modok]

this is the most common notch arrangement, 90s and newer, honda, subaru, sozuki, nissan. I think they copied honda, but I don't know for sure, Honda researched it to death first.

[ralf]

[anthracitedub]

Thanks to you all for the info. I think those rods will just go to the scrap pile and I'll get the other set of rods prepped for this engine.
Looks like some one started off with a good idea but just went about it a little crude.

[mark tucker]

now your learning!!!! OR make a tool out of one or more or well them all togeather to make a chair like berg did.probably the best usage for oe vw parts,furniture and lamps.

[Wreck]

on the subject of oil squirters , can someone tell me where the Porsche squirter is fitted on #3 cylinder on a Type 4 ?

I practiced drilling the main bearing saddles on an old cracked T1 case ,all good I thought . then went to do my Type 4 case and have found the case is very different (ended up drilling a small pilot hole through the case ) .

[Dauz]