These rods were pulled from my 1962 Valiant 225 that I am currently rebuilding.

From the best I can tell after disassembly and cleaning, the bottom of this engine was never apart until a few weeks ago.
Original semi asbestos / silver / cork oil pan gasket when I opened the engine.


My question is why are the ends of the rods copper plated?

Some are on the rotating end, some on the reciprocating end.
It's not paint, i scrubbed the crap out of them in the parts washer.
I have never seen rods plated like that, and was wondering if anyone else has observed this on a teardown of a core engine.

Any insight is appreciated.

Greg

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

Wow, that's bizarre!

For what it's worth, I used to have a giant amount of esoteric factory engineering literature, and never saw a whisper of a word about anything like this.

I hope this mystery is definitely solved before the $250 aluminum DOHC 24-valve crossflow head goes on the market…!

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

That is very strange. I have never seen that on any of the engines I have torn down, including the V-8 ones.
Makes you wonder, 'What'd they do in 62?'

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-MattMan
LEANED & MEAN

Maybe they were going to chrome plate them, then decided not to.
Actually, I have seen it before on rare occasions. Not necessarily on a slant six. I have no idea why. The first time I saw it, I was thinking it was some type of metrological result of some type of heat treatment.

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Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 170 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170
64 Valiant 4dr 225

Yet another mystery of the slanted world discovered, but not yet solved..


I actually found another seemingly oe rod with the squirt hole facing the incorrect direction too. It was machined correctly but hung on the rod/ piston backwards. Not sure if it makes a bunch of difference.

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

"rods copper plated?"

Copper plating is a factory re work process for re claiming rods that have an oversized bore or out of round bore.

If there is a small localized defect, like an inclusion the defect could be ground away then the localized spots filled with braze and smoothed. If an entire bore is say .0005 out of round. The bore would be plated with .001 thickness of copper, then re cut to size.


the report that all six of your rods have this condition indicates that when your motor came down the assembly line the builds were using parts from the salvage - repair department.
My experience with components from the salvage department supplementing production is; When everything is running and producing parts as it should, the normal flow is first run production parts go from the producing lines to the assembly department. The salvage department re works and stockpiles repaired parts. However, if there is a fault or a failure in the production process and a part shortage occurs, repaired parts from the salvage department are brought to the assembly area to maintain assembly production quotas. Hence, factory salvage - repaired parts tend to show up in specific groups of builds.

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Doo Ron Ron and the Duke of Earl are friends of mine.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX8Nj8ABEI8

Y'mean like this?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Makes perfect sense (thanks!)…and I guess it must've been a good, effective, and durable technique, if Greg found these rods in a motor that worked fine for decades and decades like that.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Cool find and cool explanations!

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

I find it weird that rod oiling hole directions were changed.
It seems like it used to be cut and dried but now who knows what is right or wrong.
Pin oiling or tappet oiling?

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Hyper_pak

My guess—don't quote me on this—is that the answer to this question is "Whoever has read this TSB".

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

It also means that likely we don't need an oil spurt hole at all! I remember the first batch of K1 rods did not have this and people had trouble with this. I imagine V8s never had this, and so the K1 folks just left it out, and it would have almost certainly been fine, especially with modern oils.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

I would think that if the squirt holes were not needed, the accounts would have had the entire process of drilling them out eliminated. Thus increasing the profit margin on the engines. Since those holes survived until the last \6 rolled off the production line, they must have served a purpose. Such as oiling the cylinder walls.

But then institutional inertia could also explain there continued existence.

Gonna disagree there. "Things work better when the oil squirts over here instead of over there" is not the same as "Oil doesn't have to squirt anywhere in this vicinity".

Every machining operation cost Chrysler money. Chrysler never met a penny they didn't pinch as hard as they could. If the oil squirt hole weren't needed, this TSB would have said it had been eliminated.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.