ORIGINAL: coomarlin
To my surprise he tells me that they had to replace the connecting rod. Definately a surprise to me. From what I've heard a broken connecting rod is almost always caused by a lean running engine.
Dear Coo,
Your bent con rod is probably due to electrically starting the engine, while it had some fuel flooding the cylinder causing an hydraulic lock - very common with up-side-down engines. Always try to flip the engine manually before applying an electrical starter to it. If it goes to hard, remove the glow plug and drain the cylinder.
Good luck with the rebuilt engine
Yaron