Connecting Rod Front and Back?

[Jimmy74]

I just read in a previous post about con rod offsets? I'm installing new County pistons from Vicky Brit tomorrow and wanted to ask about this. Each rod and cap is numbered (no brainer) but is there a front and rear to the rod? If so how do you recognize the front and i assume it mounts facing the water pump? Thanks.

 

[Dug]

Front is as you see it in your post. The offset of the rods or "wider" boss is fitted so that they face to the rear of the rods journals on #1 and #3 and set to the front on #2 and #4. Another way to express this is that the offsets face each other. #1 faces #2 and #3 faces #4 in the block.
Does that help?

 

[SilentUnicorn]

Does any one have a pic of this offset you folks are describing....i am trying to picture it but i am just not getting it.

mark

 

[tony barnhill]

I found a diagram down in a corner of a page in my shop manual - after I'd broken most of my new rings!

 

[Dug]

I don't have a scanner; pictures shown in handbooks like Clymer have this laid out. It's a matter of reading how the connecting rods are installed (big end this way, "oil holes facing", offsets facing, etc) before fitting the pistons to the rods. Reading the assembly in advance of the process gives good clues to the order.
Doug W.

 

[Jimmy74]

I discovered that in a 74 only one side of the rod and cap is numberes. All numbered sides face the the same way.

 

[ChrisS]

Take a look here an section Aa.7.25(c) on page 5. Rods 1&3 offset toward the rear and 2&4 offset toward the front.

 

[Glen_B]

Now that you've sorted out the rod directionality for a 1275, time to think about breaking all those rings. If you absolutely can't afford to break another ring, you can install pistons without a ring compressor and with less risk of breaking rings by using two popsicle sticks and gentle downward pressure on the piston as you work your way aroud each ring pressing each ring into its groove in turn. Very slow and tedious, but ZERO ring breakage. BTDT

Glen Byrns