<VV> rod/cap orientation part 2

[djtcz at comcast.net]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: djtcz at comcast.net 
Subject: Re: rod/cap orientation 


For pretty much all aircraft, and cars-n-bixe except BMW, the notches for the bearing tangs go on the same side of the rod. 
Which would make them not visible in this picture. 
http://www.cumminscn.com/images/lg061.jpg 


The rod big end is machined with the cap installed and torqued. Flipping the cap would likely result in a big end bore severely out-of-round due to cap shift, to the point it would (hopefull, fortunately) lock the crank. 
Same for main bearing caps in non-Corvair engines. Before I was even old enough to drive a friend's older brother put his Lotus Super Seven's engine together with a main cap or 2 reversed. They towed that thing up and down the street trying to start it, but the engine would not turn. 


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Forgot to mention that on engines whose rods share journals ( typical V8) the inserts are offset to one side to help clear the radius at the edge of the journal. The location of the notches positions the brg insert correctly axially in the rod. In those cases the insert offset is a real key feature that determines "correct" rod orientation 


Corvair rods have centered inserts, so I am not aware of a feature that makes the orientation of a Corvair con rod (with correctly installed cap) important, except for easily reading the numbers to almost confirm a matched assembly, 


Dan T