After grinding the sides of the rods with the carbide bit, a sandpaper roll on a tapered bit in an air tool is used to smooth the grinding marks and then the rods are glass beaded. After that they're oiled down so they won't rust. It's not really oil, but a concoction based on tranny fluid. Pic below taken after glass beading and they don't look as polished as they do before blasting. Picture quality is lower now because my good camera decided to commit suicide and jumped off a chair onto concrete damaging itself beyond use. Hopefully it's repairable but until then the old camera is back in service.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...u/MVC-027F.jpg

Read this all from #1 --- very fun post John...

You're doing what I always tell people I'd be happy to do - work in their shop for free. Of course the only one to take me up on that is Rodger - and he thinks it's fine for me to live out back in the dumpster - and pay him for sweeping his floors... Sadly - I had to decline. :D

I even get paid now Greg! And I've been learning a lot more than is presented in this thread. Only thing is, being paid has seemed to slow progress on my own engine because the time I have to spend there gets used working on everyone elses projects! LOL I've got an idea I'm gonna PM you about when I get a chance to get your opinion. As far as the Malibu goes, I haven't even gotten to all the fun stuff with the prizes from the contest yet. They're all here, but I have to do the Firebird first so I'll have the spindles from the firebird that are needed to install all the Hotchkis stuff on the bu.

Anyway, I started "reconditioning" the rods for the 357 going in the Malibu. First step is to make sure there's no burrs on the sides of the big end or where the caps meet the rod by running a flat file over them. Then the rod gets clamped into a machine that grinds a few thousandths off of the flat surface where the caps meet the rod. Then the caps are also ground flat on the surface that meets the rod. Here's a pic of one of the rods being ground. The rotating stone wheel is stationary and the rod is moved past the wheel while clamped square to the wheel in an arm thats moved by hand. I couldn't hold the camera far enough away while operating the machine to get the whole machine in the pic.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...MVC-018F-1.jpg

I cleaned up the rod bolts on a wire wheel. Next step is to reinstall the bolts for the caps. They are an interference fit so they need to be pounded into place. We have an aluminum block that gets mounted into a vice which has holes for the bolts to slide into. Then the bolts are installed with a 2 lb hammer and a large drift.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...MVC-018F-2.jpg

Once all the bolts are installed the caps that correspond with each rod are installed. The nuts for the caps need to be torqued to 45 lb. ft. so a special rod vice is used to hold them. The rod vice has wide machined flat clamping surfaces so no damage will be done to the rods working on them.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...MVC-019F-1.jpg

Once all the caps are torqued the sides of the rods where the bearings fit in are block sanded with a coarse and then fine paper to remove any small burrs that have formed where the mating surfaces were ground and make sure the sides are nice and flat where the caps meet the rods. Then the rods are blown off and cleaned to remove any particles.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...u/MVC-040F.jpg

Once the rods are clean it's on to the honing operation! Since the mating surfaces of the rod and cap have been ground the hole for the bearing is now smaller than stock. This allows us to hone the bearing contact surface while opening up the hole to the correct diameter while being sure the enlarged hole is perfectly round.

Usually specs are checked (in a book) to determine the correct diameter of the hole needed for the rod bearings and then the gauge on the right side below is set with a micrometer. Because this is a commonly used size we have a SBC connecting rod we know is at "0" to calibrate the gauge instead of using a micrometer, just saves setup time. The hole will be made to stock size and the bearings will be ordered to make up the difference needed if the crank is turned down.

The size of the hole is checked on the gauge in the pic below where the rod is hanging. The hole is honed by stones spinning on a shaft while oil drips on them. The bar on the left holding up the horizontal rod keeps the rod stable while it is slid in and out (by hand) on the spinning shaft with the stones. Technique is required to get an even finish and desired crosshatch. In this case I'm opening the holes up until they are still a thousandth undersize and will take out the last thousandth after balancing and when the rods are cool so the measurements will be precise.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...u/MVC-041F.jpg

Time to "balance" the rods! This is done after honing because the weight of the big end of the rods may have changed depending on how much material was removed grinding the mating surfaces and then honing the end.

Each end of the rod is weighed using a digital scale and the balancing apparatus shown below. An adapter that closely matches the diameter of the big end is used on either the stationary pivot or the floating pivot on the scale depending on which end you're weighing. The weight of each end is marked on every rod.

Starting with the heaviest "big end" rod the square chunk of metal on the end of the rod is ground down on the rods that are heavier than the lightest one. After they were all down to the weight of lightest one I examined to see if they could all be lightened a bit more without sacrificing durability and took a couple more grams off of each one. The same procedure was then performed on the small end of the rods.

They're now all at 414 and 169 grams. Not super light "race weight" but now they're lighter and equal weights. Less weight allows the engine to "rev" more quickly. Do I really need polished balanced rods for this engine? Probably not, really. LOL But it's cooool!~ AHAHAHA And I have a full shop at my disposal, so why not? As with anything, different customer requests, applications, and products may use different procedures so YMMV.

It was about 3 AM when I was doing this and I forgot to take lots of pics, so the first 2 showing the equipment used are pics I had from other peoples projects lready completed and the second 2 are my rods.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...libu/006-1.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...libu/002-1.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...u/MVC-042F.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...u/MVC-044F.jpg

Kool stuff John!

When I had the 427 SBC rebuilt - the builder talked me into using "honda" rod journal size on the crank...

Got to tell you -- you take weight out of the reciprocating assembly and she'll rev quicker than you can imagine! I was shocked at how quick this motor (now a 406) rev'd when on the dyno!

Yup! You're right about the weight deal. Gotta look around the shop for a 6" harmonic balancer because they're lighter than the 8" truck ones like this engine probably had when new. Almost ready to get the rotating assembly balanced!

Had a few minutes last night after decking blocks so I got my pistons out and weighed them for balancing. They ranged from just under 752 to 754 grams (with corresponding wrist pins). Tonight I ground away some material by the wrist pins on the heavier ones to bring them down to 752. I could have milled the inside of the top of the piston to remove the weight but for this engine the extra time and effort required isn't worth it.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...u/MVC-032F.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...u/MVC-034F.jpg

Very cool post my friend!! :thumbsup: Keep the pics of the progress coming!

Thanks Ty! I've been building a workshop and doing a garage makeover so progress is a little slow on the car but now I'll have more space to work and be more organized. Today I got back to part of the interior that needed attention. And I got to use my NEW work table (not finished yet) for it's first project.

After 30 years the package shelf like many other original ones in G bodies looked really bad. It had warped, been repainted with vinyl dye, faded, had speaker holes for 6 X 9's hacked, couple different sets of speakers with different mounting bolt patterns and looked bad. The dark window tint kept it out of plain sight for the most part. Then Ralph the "expert" roll cage installer put another hole in it finishing it off. So I decided to make a new one.

A while back I picked up a sheet of white hardboard at Home Cheapo for 6-7 bucks or something like that. traced out the old rear shelf and cut the hardboard with a skillsaw.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...u/MVC-018F.jpg

Since I don't have any extra loot to spend on the car right now I've been keeping my eyes open for some black rug raterial to work with for the shelf. A couple nights ago There was a black sub box out for junk at the repair garage next to the machine shop so I gave it a quick look in the dark and took it home to examine in daylight.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...MVC-026F-1.jpg

In daylight it looked like there would be enough usable material if I could peel it off. It must have been part of a "Custom" 80's-90's install complete with sheetrock screws and fiberglassed to the floorpan!

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...u/MVC-031F.jpg

So I chiseled the material off with a painters scraping tool and razor blade. Turned out to be enough material as long as I put a slice (not by me) over a speaker hole.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...u/MVC-035F.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...u/MVC-024F.jpg

Cut the material out and made small version of the speaker holes for referance. Then figured out where I want the speaker covers. I'm using an old set of covers for a retro backdated appearance that will be mounted to the package shelf with the speakers mounted by themselves. I've spent enough time screwing around with shelf 6 X 9's to learn my lesson and am eliminating the sandwich mounting where the bolts that hold the speakers also hold the covers. Next I need to find my glue, some fasteners for the speaker covers and make a vinyl rollover for where the shelf meets the backseat.


http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...MVC-025F-1.jpg


http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...MVC-027F-1.jpg