cylinders honed

[petejw]

honed the cylinders today
and gapped the over size rings
came out pretty good.
heres a few pics.



the 3rd cylinder slightly honed in a attempt to show the depth of the upper ridge


the cylinder honed, removing the upper ridge.


the pistons cleaned and polished

[natemoen]

Again, you do better work than I!

[DAVINCI]

Hey, Pete, are those NEW pistons??

[petejw]

thanx nate,
i ended up taking a bit of the the bores, i didnt want that
upper ridge left there.

hey davinci,
there off my original engine, theyve got
over 140,000k's on them, they cleaned up pretty well
considering, there was a fair bit of carbon on them.

[Rickrod3]

thanx nate,
i ended up taking a bit of the the bores, i didnt want that
upper ridge left there.

hey davinci,
there off my original engine, theyve got
over 140,000k's on them, they cleaned up pretty well
considering, there was a fair bit of carbon on them.

Hey Pete:

Nice work. How did you clean the pistons?

I have been using a wire wheel in a hand grinder to clean up some cases.
It didn't seem to rough on them so, I was thinking of using it on some pistons which need cleaning.
Rick

[petejw]

thanx rick,

for the ring grooves, i broke an old ring and used that to
clean the grooves,

i used a wire wheel (worn/used) on the grinder gently
for the tops of the pistons,

inside the pistons i used oven cleaner, this stuff is strong
so i let it sit for 5-10 min before rinsing but needed to do
it a couple of times then used a scourer.

for the oil holes (there was a few that were blocked) i used
a small drill bit that fitted neatly inside the hole.

i then used a buffer to polish the tops and sides,
overkill? probably but turned out pretty good and hopefully will prevent carbon from sticking.

[Rickrod3]

i then used a buffer to polish the tops and sides,
overkill? probably but turned out pretty good and hopefully will prevent carbon from sticking.

I've heard of polishing piston tops before. It makes sense that it would prevent carbon build up.
So I don't think it over kill.

Rick

[petejw]

yep, same thing as polishing the exhaust ports.

[foreda]

Rings

Did you use oversize rings and grind the ends?

[petejw]

yep, bought the .25 oversize rings off ebay
around $40 from memory, probably wasnt a
bad idea either, i ended up taking a fair bit of the bore.

[natemoen]

Did you really have to file much off the ring even though?

[petejw]

before i honed it the rings sat over each other,
after the hone, the rings butted together,

i set the ring gap at 10 thou, but u need to be careful
the 1st one i did i took a bit more off than i wanted to,
the gap is 8 thou - 16 thou but max wear was
1mm i think from memory.

do the oil rings first and do a little at a time, it doesnt take
much and be sure the ends are square, i used a points file
holding the ring in my hand pushing the ring together to do that.
once u do a cpl it does get easier.

i also used a piston with the number2 compression ring fitted
and pushed that into the cylinder to square the ring in its bore
to check the end gap.

when u honed the cylinders did u remove the top ridge, its best
to do so, if u dont u can run the risk of the top ring breaking.

[petejw]

nate,
i also used the dremel with a flat sanding disc
to take the initial part of the ring off before using
the points file, but if u dnt feel comfortable just use
a file.

[crazy steve]

Isn't there a problem with polishing the sides of the pistons? IIRC, pistons have a specific machined finish on them designed to hold oil for lubrication. Not enought oil, you get scuffed bores/pistons....

[natemoen]

I ask cause the 1st over rings are only .25mm larger correct, so shouldnt be much material to remove.

Also IIRC last time I looked at the rings I got I don't think there was any difference between the top two rings, did you find anything?