Date:         Wed, 16 Aug 2000 23:23:30 EDT
Reply-To:     Wolfvan88@aol.com
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Robert Lilley <Wolfvan88@aol.com>
Subject:      Re: How to throw a rod
Comments: To: macmillan@home.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Stuart,

Sorry to hear about the rod break.

When you rebuild, have the crank counterweighted.  The crank flexing generally causes the rods to fail through side stressing and wears out the bearing faster.  The aluminum case does not pound out as the softer T1 but the bearing do over time causing the low oil pressure and rod failures.

I have a good 2.1L case if your crank is not bent.  You can get an after market set of rods.

<<....  The extra power
produced by the 2.1 shortens the life of the engine IMHO...>>

What happens I think is that the 2.1L has a longer stroke that the 1.9L.  This causes the rod angles to have greater side stresses as the center bearing wears and the clearences grow the angle increases and poof the rods fails.  The 2 heavy journels on on the center cause the crank to flex as the rpms increase- centrifical forces force the crank to run in an oblong path, the bearing keeps this from happening and wears out causing the rod to fail.

Counterweighting the crank keeps this effect from happening and adds many other benifits.

All for a small sum of $150

Robert