hey guys new to the forum but not new to 3rd gens. me and a buddie of mine put a 327 in to a 86 firechicken. well yesterday we wanted to pull the motor to make it look better it only had about 500 miles on it but it sat and we work really hard to get it to were it is now so we pulled it. when we pull the valve cover we noticed that the rocker arms were really lose. so we pulled the heads today,all in all it looks new. but we did find some metal under the intake mani so we wanted to find out were it came from . so we pull the oil pan and at fist glance looked great. i looked a bit harder and bam 3 nd 4 connecting rods were the rist pins are,are blue about 2 1/2 inches. we never heard a rod nock and it had a **** load of power. so my question is why would this happen? we just built the motor. i will tell you this the weekend we got done tuning the car we took on about a 2 hrs trip to english town race way for deisel racing. when pulling in to town over there the car hit 250+ would that cause this blue color. it looks like some one took a tourch to it. the car also has about 65 pds of oil pressure it has a high volume oil pump in it i just dont no why it would turn like this. and the crank and rods and pistions are all fordge and not cheap. any help would be appreciated

 

small ends were heated to push the pins in/out? or did you assemble it all yourself and know for a fact it wasn't torched? If so...too little tolerance if they're floaters

 

Usually when the end of a rod turns blue it's from too tight of clearance on the pin or piston... Are your rods press fit or floaters?

 

there pressed in. if the rods were heated up wouldent we have seen it b4 we put them in. we build the motor in a weekend. i no for a fact that the rods were not blue b4 we put them in.

 

Are you absolutely certain? There's no reason for the small end to turn blue in a press fit pin application since it doesn't move. Must have been from assembly.

 

If they're a pressed fit piston, then I beliece the piston would have seized on the pin long before there was enough heat generated to turn the small end blue.....

 

if the rods was bent would it have made it 500 miles? im almost certin that they were not blue when put together. if the rods were bent would it turn blue like that or is the only way it would turn blue from heating it up?

 

With a pressed fit pin, the pin does not rotate in the connecting rod, only in the piston....I just don't see any way other then the rod heater at assembly time that would blue the small end of the rod.....

 

alright thats good to know. thanks guys for all the help tonight

 

A rod heater doesn't get it nearly hot enough to blue the metal. Sounds like someone did it under the shade tree with a torch.

 

Must be a lot of shade tree machinists. I've seen the small end of the rod blued countless times when new pistons/wrist pins have been installed on non-floating type rods. Whatever the case, it doesn't harm a thing.