Connecting rods

[California 72]

Who out there has replaced their Cleveland connecting rods that could provide a source?

I'm currently trying to find standard size forged and sleeved, I-beam style for floating wrist pins. I've found H-beam rods at Summit but those are definitely overkill for what we are building and want to spend. I genuinely don't wish to rebuild a stroker so while understanding the Cleveland was a short-lived production life, it really remains one of the better motors Ford designed. Imho.

While I did realize the add-ons were scarce, what I didn't realize was that it's light in availability of the performance parts engine rebuild end of things. As I stated above about building a stroked motor, it appears as if all of the internal parts production has been limited to entire kits.

As it stands and I don't find the I-beam style I'm looking for, I can either shell out the $700 for H-beams or probably end up spending twice that trying to reuse my current rods by having them gone over to make sure everything is the correct symmetry and not a weak link due to a hairline crack or some other fatal flaw from age and prior abuse.

After all, every P.O. out there is always very gentle and conscious of maintenance and never abuses their classic rides. Seriously though, it's one thing to be a teen during the 70's with your foot in it all of the time, but as we age, we're intended to learn the benefits of preserving these things, especially the respect of how much it costs to put one back together.

 

[Hemikiller]

If you don't have any odd wear on the rod bearings or pistons, then you can likely just have them magnafluxed, checked for straightness and twist, and simply replace the nuts with ARP. Cleveland rods are quite stout and are not usually on the "must replace" list.

 

[California 72]

If you don't have any odd wear on the rod bearings or pistons, then you can likely just have them magnafluxed, checked for straightness and twist, and simply replace the nuts with ARP. Cleveland rods are quite stout and are not usually on the "must replace" list.

Hemikiller, Thanks for the post. Appreciate you chiming in.

I'm trying to move to floating wrist pins on the pistons so I'm waiting on a quote to have the small-bore end sleeved for that. The other work quote was the next step depending on the cost to do the machining.

I've moved a couple machine shop duties to our last NAPA engine shop in Richmond VA due to a lighter workload than the previous shop. Spoke with them today and the guy that would be doing that was out to lunch and they'd get back to me later. What has me most concerned is the labor dollar per hour with the once over on the old rods and the fact that the "stoutness" of the Cleveland rods plays heck with the tooling that cuts the opening for the sleeves.

The bid process will be moving slower because I'm backing into it from learning the availability and cost issues of the new rods. At this point, if it all comes in the same price as the new rods, I might as well just do the upgrade.

In the end, if I could locate a set of new I-beam, standard size forged rods, they've been running around $375 a set, based off of what I have learned so far, the rework of the old rods will be more than that. Trouble is, like I mentioned earlier, no one, that I've been able to find, has the I-beams.