Hello everyone, I recently picked up a 59ab flathead. I put it on an engine stand, and started to go thru it, and noticed that while the rest of the con rod nuts were castellated, and cotter pinned the front two rods had very thin “castellations” on the nuts, and the studs themselves were not drilled for a cotter pin. Was this a style of replacement rod? A farmer fix? Wrong altogether? Since I had it to this point I was considering going to ARP nuts. Overkill? Totally useless? Thanks for any input
Those are Ford nuts. They used those style locking nuts in many places. It's common nowadays to get some quality SBC rod nuts for use on flatheads. They are common as dirt and shouldn't cost too much.
Thanks, Alchemy. You’re always good for a bit o knowledge. So, no harm if I go with ARP? Maybe I’m throwing good money away.
I'm sure ARP nuts will be plenty fine. And it doesn't seem odd in the least that the last guy in there used whatever he had on hand. But it might make you want to check for other oddities. Or just run it.