Good news!
I got a bit itchy to do something so I decided to fit the rings and put the pistons in the sleeves.
Got the book oily.. if only the girlfriend knew I got oil on a book, I'd never hear the end of it!
Used a piston to get the rings square in the barrels. At least I get to use my new feelers!
Gaps ranged from 30 to about 34 for uppers and lower rings, I used one set of rings per barrel as I was checking and fitting them as I went. Side clearances were also fine, pretty much bang on, got no pictures of that, you get the jist from the book picture. Before fitting I cleaned the pistons down with some brake clean and clean cloths for each. When fitting the oil scraper I made sure the join was butted up to itself and not overlapping, then made sure that the gaps on the rings each side of it were of equal or there abouts distance from it and themselves. When fitting the other rings the gaps for the upper and lower rings were 180 degrees of each other, so one at the top of the piston the other at the bottom. The first piston I was quite cautious as I know these rings can be brittle, but with the right tools (I know right scary! I had the right tool for the job!
) they went on without issue and the rest followed suit quite quickly after gaining a bit of confidence, one or two tried to escape as I had oiled the piston and the rings when fitting and one tried to take my glove with it. Make sure to not have any bits of glove in your rings!, there is probably a joke there somewhere..
Once I had all the rings on each piston I put them to one side and cleaned up the barrels with brake clean to get rid of any honing oil that was left and gave the sealing surfaces a clean with some scotch brite pads, vinegar and rinsing with brake clean before putting a bit of oil over them (I'm paranoid about stuff getting rusty! can always wipe them off later!)
Once I did that I got some clean engine oil (the stuff I use in the van, so the Morris Mineral stuff) and lubed up the inner barrels with it.
For putting the pistons in I was unsure if I should try putting them in from the bottom or top of the barrels, in the end I went for the top making sure that the arrows would be facing the correct way, IE towards the flywheel for both sides while making sure the barrels were orientated the right way, so the flanged bits face each other.
You can tell in this picture what pistons I cleaned compared to the two shinier ones from ajsimmo
. The walls and grooves were cleaned as clean as I could get, scraped most of the carbon out of the ring grooves with old bits of rings and soaking them overnight in petrol. Though still not as shiney and free from crap I still call it a win.
Tomorrow I think I will clean up the conrods and put the Crank together! oooo fun!!
The one time I don't wear eye protection because I wasn't under the van!
l fell for it at first...
hahaha
