Too much material removed during balancing???

[Follow Ups] [Post Followup] [Dodge Power Wagon Forum]

Posted by Matt Wilson on Saturday, December 22, 2001 at 1:32PM :

I picked up the the 230 flathead for my '49 yesterday from the machine shop. The machinist is very experienced and well-regarded by at least a couple of hot rodders I've spoken with, but I'm not sure how much work he has done on flatheads.

Anyway, in balancing the rods, he removed a HELLUVA lot of material from the caps. On two of the caps, he completely removed the two ribs that are on the underside. Those two caps are now flush all the way across. He also removed some material from the regions on the sides where the upper half of the rod meets the cap (around the bolt bores). And he even removed some material from the bottom part of the I-beam section (just a few thousands). He says it's ok, but I wonder if so much material removed would weaken the rod enough to be a problem.

I don't know where else he could have removed the metal anyway, since these don't have pads on the caps, like modern engines.

Also, he says there is no need to shot-peen the rods, considering that it's not going to be a high-rpm, high-horsepower engine.

What do y'all think?

Thanks,


Matt


Follow Ups:


Post a Followup

Name:
E-Mail:
Subject:
Message:
Optional Link
URL:
Title:
Optional Image Link
URL:


This board is powered by the Mr. Fong Device from Cyberarmy.com