Removing the Connecting Rods–Part 1

Removing the connecting rods was the first step of many in removing the “guts” from Ms.Rusty.  I’ve been dreading this for quite for several reasons. 1) it will be hard to get inside the Ms. Rusty’s head to access all the screws and such; 2) this is one of those points of no return, and 3) I’m not sure I’ll ever get her back together again if I can even get her taken apart.  BUT – what have I got to loose, right??

There are two connecting rods – the Feed Connecting rod and the Feed Forked Connection & Feed Regulator.  This post covers the removal of the Feed Connecting rod.

There are several pieces that need to be taken off well before you try to remove the feed connecting rod.  Those parts include: balance wheel, arm side cover, and arm top cover.  If you’ve ben following this blog at all, you know that these parts, and several others, have already been removed from Ms. Rusty. 

Through the hole under the arm side cover you can see both rods.  The Feed Connecting rod is the rod towards the front of the machine, or on the right hand side in the photos below. At the top of the Feed Connecting rod are two screws that need to removed.

   

The only way to remove these two screws are through the holes at the top of the machine that are under the arm top cover (now you understand why that needed to be removed).  I attempted to show where these two screws are in the next two photos.

   

Once these two screws were removed, the Feed Connecting rod fell out of Ms. Rusty.  This is because the Feed Rocker bars had already been removed (see previous post).  The next two photos show the view from the side arm hole without the feed connecting rod, and the feed connecting rod and screws after removal.

At first glance it may appear that there is no right or wrong way to place the Feed Rod cap onto the Feed Connecting rod.  But, if you look closely at the side of the rod, both the cap and the rod are clearly marked to show proper position for placement.

Unmarked side of the Feed Connecting Rod: 

Marked side of the Feed Connecting Rod:

Better view of the mark (a diagonal gouge): 

Next time I’ll show you how to remove the other connection rod – the Feed Forked Connection and Feed Regulator.