History Aftermarket rods in the "Odd ball Engine" entry

Pictures later on, but I'm doing something quite interesting on a real 'baller' of an engine. 420 CID, dual overhead cams, 4 valves per cylinder, stock HP about 265. Yeah, that same J engine I mentioned in the "odd ball hot rod engines" topic. She had a cold knock. It would go away once warmed up, a redneck stethoscope revealed the noise to be up high in the engine, and by all reports it was rebuilt with the ***istance of known and respected enthusiasts of the brand. We dumped the oil and dropped it's monstrous oil pan and noticed the #8 rod (aluminum rods ) was tight to the back of the piston at the pin while the rest were somewhat centered. With all 8 plugs out you couldn't turn the engine with the service crank. We bumped it over with the starter and the rod still hung close to the rear of the piston/cylinder while the others had normal piston pin travel fore and aft. Not a lot, just enough. Some reading of "The Duesenberg Owner's Companion" revealed that the rods and pistons could be removed from the bottom by rotating the crank as needed for adequate space. I told my ***ociate, "I ain't scared, lets drop 8 out of the hole..." so we did. I always thought it turned over slow with the starter and that inability to turn the rotating ***y with the service crank might have been a 'tell' of sorts. Once 8 was down and out (and, well, ok I was a little nervous at 1st) the big ol beaut would wing over at almost twice the speed before that. Better yet, break the oil film grip and you could rotate the whole gig by hand. We set the rod/piston ***y on a flat surface and just did a square check and it was bent, revealed by at least a .020 gap on the top ot bottom of the big end depending on which side. The next 7 were quite straight. So now she gets a whole set of custom Carrillo rods which will remove this icon's "Achilles Heel" and help us all sleep better. I'll drop a few pics here in a few minutes, just thought I'd share some hot rod work with everyone. Yeah, I know it's a factory hot rod, and before you ask, NO, it's not mine. Sure is fun to work on though...

 

Nice detective work.

 

A Duesenberg...one of the earliest factory hot rods. I'd love to be a fly on the wall while you've got it opened up.

 

Love to see the pics.

 

Ok, pictures. Have more to take as we proceed but for now...
The aluminum rods. A bit over 10" center to center:
Now here's something you don't see often. How about mercury filled vibration dampeners bolted to the crank?

There's 2, one on each side of the #1-2 crank arm:

And removed, they look like:

Holds 3 gallons of oil, and a finned aluminum pan with a windage tray. Remember, this is 1929. Cal Custom, eat yer heart out:

Once I have everything cleaned up and ready to ***emble I'll have details of how wide the journals are (2 modern insert bearing width), a couple polished aluminum rods as keepsakes, some "action shots" of the ***embly and other unique details, like the tapered lower cylinder edges to compress the rings for re-***embly, the oil pump/regulator/drain valve ***embly with a float for checking the oil level and more. Stay tuned, but this may take a week or more to finish. Hope you find it as fun and interesting as I do.

 

Rods have steel caps? Weight of new carillo rods [if steel] of course will be heavier so any trick balance wise?

 

Y'all might be surprised how heavy the aluminum rods are. Took a couple more more pics.
The new Carrillo rods:


Some detail of the aluminums, note the pressure oiled wrist pins via the 2 holes bored through the beam, and note how wide they are, again the new ones require 2 bearing pairs per rod for a total of 16 halves.



The oil pump is a bit of mechanical engineering. Note the big cork float, it's attached to a geared flex shaft which turns a small chrome indicator outside of the crankcase showing full to empty in 1/4 increments. Also of note, a heavier flex shaft attached to a lever on the same plate as the level indicator. One side says open, the other closed. A simple twist and the oil dumps from the pan. The valve is on a spring loaded eccentric to keep it sealed well.


And finally the front of that finned aluminum pan. Should be *****in when it's all cleaned up.

I did this one with my phone so forgive any silly errors. ****in thing thinks it knows more than us. Past that, enjoy. More to come.

 

Plans for the old rods?

 

We'll polish a cpl as keepsakes, probably store the rest with the other spare parts.

 

Impressive engine!Thanks.

 

Nice!!

This will be an interesting thread

 

I'm watching this one too. It would be nice to see some pictures of the motor. This is from a book and refers to a racecar driver from Argentina and tells about the spec of a similar motor.

 

Cool.......

 

Gringo my friend!! I add a picture of the car from Argentina!! [emoji106]



Sent from my XT1068 using H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Its an inline, so the crank is balanced independent of the rod, pistons, etc...so it doesn't require any tricks to balance as long as each rod, piston, wrist pin all weight the same for each cylinder, it always has an equal amount of weight on opposing cylinders to keep it in balance.

 

Got it...I had brain fart that Dusey were inline, brain was saying v8..

 

I bet those Carrillo's were cheap. Lippy(following along)

 

I was wondering about that... new rings?

Very neat, thanks for posting.

 

This engine was essentially new. When the current owner got it it was stuck, perhaps with old oil, perhaps with a combination of oil and corrosion. #8 looks like it was stuck while the others look fresh and new. It's quite possible he bent the #8 rod with his efforts to free things up. Looking at the rings they're not fully seated yet and there's less than 50 miles of easy driving on it. Timing is everything, and finding this when we did was good timing indeed. The cylinders look good, the rings, the piston skirts, crank appears as new, just a singular issue that, left unchecked, could have cost tens of thousands to repair. Today I'll finish up bearing sizes, pin fit, start cleaning everything for final ***embly.

 

Wow! Talk about being ahead of the times.

 

I dont know what a set of Carrillos cost but 28 years ago I saw an NOS set of Duesenberg rods at the fall Hershey swap meet with a price tag of $8000 on them. That figures out with inflation to $15202.90 today

 

So today we have all the bearings ordered and started on fitting the wrist pins. They're both the same size, the pins and the new bores, so a really light touch with a hone and we'll get the .0007 fit we want. Knocked all the pistons off the original rods and cleaned them up in the parts washer. That pesky #8 needs one of the ring lands cleaned up some. Tomorrow I'm laying everything out to photograph and re-write my "build sheet" so it's easier to read later on. We want to keep everything nice and tidy. Hope to be into ***embly by Fri.

 

More pics as promised. All the bearings are in and we have an average of .0026 journal/oil clearance. Did a rough cleaning of the oil pan too, will get a finish and cosmetic clean and polish as well.
Rods with bearings and pins fitted:

Pistons all cleaned and ring lands filed:

And I'll say it again, Cal Custom eat yer heart out. Does it get more hot rod than this?

 

Those Carillo rods look like "The ****"! There are a few different Duesenberg rod styles, and some of them look pretty wimpy in the cap area. (I.E. Carr Duesenberg, J476) We pulled the pan on it last fall to correct a 1960's repair of the pan where a rod went thru it right where the inspection/sump plate goes on
We had a 1931 Duesenberg parts catalog (archives) a REPLACEMENT PAN in 1931 was 325$ !!
Yeah, almost the price of a new Ford!

 

Amazing details! The Deusy was the top of the line in it's day, and those details are part of it. For sure a wealthy man's car, then and now.....

 

Nice to see ya weps. Hows that ol 12 treatin ya? We started out just doing some repairs needed as discovered during the visit to Auburn and the Thunder run. Rewound the armature (a double arm in that generator), did a bladder inside the gas tank. Went back to conventional brakes, did a cooling and oil flush, that's when the "cold knock" really reared her ugly face(!). The rest I described above but I'm feeling really confident with what we're doing. gonna try to squeeze in some fender metal repairs while we're at it. I have a good feeling that it will be better than ever once we get past this.

 

I fought with getting my balls kicked most of the winter figuring out HOW to correctly set the points and timing on the thing, but that's a story in itself. I took it to a local "dyno days" and won a trophy for lowest HP
it made 155 HP and 720 Ft/lbs torque @ 3650 RPM.
I have been doing some tin work getting the gl*** in, and hope to have the cab closed in by labor day, I am finishing the top like a Salon series that is finished metal without the broadcloth.

 

Love the torque #

 

We found s few other needs and have been collecting parts and making repairs. 1st of the week we're back into the ***embly process and I'll update this gig. No, I didn't forget my brothers and sisters here, just the ins and outs of running a shop.

 

So all 8 rods n pistons are in. Hung the mercury filled weights back on the crank, pulled the water jackets to find crystallized anti-freeze and rust half way up the cylinder walls. Got all that out of there and cleaned up nice too. Even the best engineered motors can't be left alone and forgotten. Here's some pictures of how she's lookin now.
New home for the Carillos:


Mercury filled weights back on the crank:

EEEWWW!!!. Can't have this mess in the water jackets

So now:

Oil pan sump and outside bottom all cleaned up, still got to polish it some before the windage tray and screen go back in:


And if the water jackets and pan were messy how are the cam valleys? Nice and clean as well:

Here's a shot of the fuel pump/service timer/Bijur system drive unit. In the second picture if you look close, you can see the switching mechanism in there. No, I'm not going in too deep on this thing because it works right now. If it ain't broke...


In the final installment, hopefully sooner than later, I'll try to upload a video of her running with all the new parts and tuned to perfection. If there's any other service of interest I'll put that up 1st but we're getting close to a close on this one. Enjoy and stay tuned...