WELDING ROD WEIGHTS AND MEASURES First, find the length of your welding rod that is equal to one gram. On my welding bench I stamped the numbers 1 through 5 for that distance to give me a visual reference of the weight of the welding rod. As shown in the picture if I...

MAKING IT SIMPLE When I build my bobweights a simple piece of PVC for a stand makes it easier. Just zero out the scale and add the weight. Randy Torvinen Torvinen’s Machine Menahga, MN August, 2020

TONING UP AN LS On LS Crankshaft’s we are balancing, I always use a tone ring alignment tool to check that the alignment is correct. Then we place two equally spaced welds to ensure the ring stays aligned. High RPM LS engines have been known to spin the tone ring....

SNUG HAS A NUMBER When using the stretch method on rod bolts that ARP and many other manufacturers use, they want you to snug the bolt before applying load to the fastener. I found a way that myself and any of my employees can duplicate “snug.” I first measure all the...

BALANCE HOLE PLUGS Balancing a crankshaft by drilling large holes in counterweights can leave an appearance of the counterweight that is not pretty. To improve the appearance, we keep a supply of disc style freeze plugs in the diameters of our balancing drills so we...

STROKER CLEARANCE When checking rod to cam clearance on stroker engines, you will often find interference. To find out “where you are at”, make a clay "hatchet" on the rod journal and roll it over. Put a little oil on the cam lobe first. It will give you an exact...