I managed to have my 46FX have a close encounter of the terra kind yesterday. No serious damage that I can tell but I did break it down to clean the dirt out of it. In the course of doing so the sleeve come out and then the con rod came off the shaft. So I've got it all cleaned up and wanting to reassemble it but I am worried about knowing which side of the con rod goes toward the front.

If I look at the machining on it one side has a deeper groove than the other where it tapers. It isn't clear to me which side the deeper machined side goes on fore or aft?

I'm probably not describing this very well basically I'm trying to avoid having the piston be 180 degrees from its original position by putting the con rod in the wrong way. I'm also worried that I could score the sleeve by putting it in the wrong way. I suppose I have a 50% shot but given my luck I know which way that would end up.

Anyone have an idea how I would tell? The exploded view doesn't appear clear to me.

Thanks,

Chris

If you examine the large end of the connecting rod, you'll see the bronze bushing inside the rod end. One side of the bushing has a small chamfer; the other side is milled flush with the side of the rod. The side that's milled flush goes towards the rear cover.

Bax,

Thanks for the help. I actually noticed the arrow on the piston and did a bit of digging to learn that the arrow should point to the exhaust port. Since the rod was still connected to the piston, making the arrow point to the exhaust port ironed the whole issue out.

With further digging I noticed a post on a question about the 46LA and found the info about the the chamfer on the bushing.

Thanks again.

Chris