Whenever I have an engine that has a solid aluminum rod, (no bushings) the wear always happens at the piston end. At the crank end, we have much fresh fuel/lube sloshing around and with the pin rotating a full 360 degrees, lube distribution is quite efficient. At the piston, the pin only oscillates. Plus, it's enclosed by the piston skirt and not much flow can be happening there, I think.

And meanwhile, I've been doing a lot of experimenting trying to perfect the production of Biodiesel fuel. As it turns out, I had originally made some really, really bad fuel. Lots of glycerine left in it along with water and SOAP. Geez, soap. It's a wonder I got the engine to run at all. But all that stuff was likely helping me from blowing up or seizing the engine entirely. TRUE and proper Biodiesel feels nothing like the oil from which it originated. In fact, it feels a lot like kerosene. I mean the viscosity and the feel between your fingers. No way this stuff is EVER going to run as a one component fuel. Gonna need oil, lots of it as in the usual, at least 15 to 20%. Wonder of wonders. But the fun thing is that Biodiesel has a higher cetane rating than kerosene or truck diesel. So what? Well, recall that we were trying to run an all kero (plus oil) fuel and while we could get a good run, throttling suffered. Adding ignition improver made things worse. Only TRUE raising of the cetane number, as in adding lots of ether, would give us easy starting, a milder compression setting AND good throttling. So the interesting thing will be to see how a good and proper biodiesel fuel will behave in all areas of operation. Sure wish it were Summer.