Oh, the sites back up. And looking pretty spiffy. Cool. Anyway... I was wondering, since I spun #7, I know that rod is trash. I found an NOS new in box cap screw rod that is an exact match to my '76 cap screw rods (engine itself is a '76 will original crank and rods, block, and heads. '75 4 bbl intake) and I was wondering, are my other rods bad as well? I wouldn't think they would be, considering none of them spun or tried to weld themselves to the crank. Long story short, no oil pressure upon break in, engine looked ok. Fixed the problem, forgot the damn oil galley plugs. There no visible damage on the bearings or cam. Engine still turned over like butter. Engine ran great for 5600 miles, then on the highway at 70mph it poofed out blue smoke, stuttered, then kept going as normal. Few days latter started breaking up real bad, then started knocking. Took it out and apart, #7 rod bearing spun, #3 looked like the surface of the moon, all the rest were scratched on the mains and rods. Cam ground into the front cam bearing and sent the metal through the engine. NOW, as I said are my other rods fine? They all looked brand spankin new, aside from the bearings. The bolts on #7 were noticeably harder to remove than the others. It took 65lbs of force to remove them according to my torque wrench while it only took about 40-43 for the other 7. And I know I didn't just over tighten #7 for shits n giggles. Big end of rod of course has a big dark stripe down the middle of it, with the ripped off bearing tang still in the tang holder on the rod. Any input/help/advice is appreciated as always.
WOW, must be an epidemic on rod bearings spinning on the 350 My #3 spun, the rest didn't look all that great, time for a rebuild On yours, have ALL the rods checked out/measured. More than likely they've been heated, beat up and banged outta round on the big end. Have EVERYTHING checked. Like you I had some issues way back, one of my front oil galley plugs blew out, lost oil press. Installed TA's threaded galley plugs, back in business, 5 years later, the bypass in the filter blew out, pressure dropped to 20 psi on the highway @ 3200 rpm. Little by little the damage was being done, THEN the squeaking bearing!
I forgot to mention, install TA's threaded oil galley plugs in the front of the block. Myself, I don't trust the staked cup plugs, especially when cold pressure can approach 80/over 100 psi. Good luck to yah bud
In about a month or so I'm gonna take my crank and rods down to my local machine shop, have it turned, and have them check the rods. One step at a time I suppose.
