Boring an engine with a hone?

You cannot afford the hone required to take out the damage to the cyl and fit an oversize piston. First oversize is likely 10 thou over - typical honing (with a VERY expensive Sunnen type fixed hone) is in the order of a couple thou. Get the block bored for oversize pistons, and finish honed to proper fit. A LOT cheaper than buying and using a fixed hone.

Been a mechanic since 1969.

bringing the block to a quality automotive machine shop and letting them clean, bore and hone it. It's not very expensive and if they are a good shop they can do a far better job than you can.

At the machine shop we used a home similar to this:

We relined tubes that were around 36" long with stainless steel pipe and then honed, I don't remember for sure, around 100 thousandths out of this stainless steel bore. This took a few hours to get it honed to size but we were removing a lot of metal much more difficult than iron in around 36" of cylinder. I removed 0.020" from my motorcycle cylinder in a fairly short amount of time, maybe a half hour to 45 minutes with a lot of stopping to measure several different places. I normally didn't hone because the boss had more critical jobs to do so I stopped more often to see how fast material was being removed, checked taper, measured diameter X and Y, etc.

I'm confident that I could get the bore the right size in a reasonable amount of time with a hone like the Lisle, but, like Jon said, I don't know the surface finish would be right and it looks like I can have it done cheaper than the price of the hone not considering the time plus the price for the heavy duty drill.

I had a buddy tell me he polished a cylinder in a model airplane engine, the piston seized up, seems it needs them grooves for holding oil! I can see that the finish could be important for proper break-in, wear, the ability to hold oil in the "scratches".

RogerN

It'll take you a month to take a 4cyl block out to 010 oversized using manual honing equipment--find a shop that sunnen cyllinder king autonatic sizing hone and jave them do it for you.

As far as pistons, rings, bearings lifters and so forth, I suggest order from JC Whitney, my experience with has always been good and their prices usually come in substantially below your local parts houses--though I haven't bought anything from them in about ten years, at that time the parts were still mostly from high quality manufacturers like Clevite, Michigan Bearing and so forth.

The elephant in the room---get a good boneyard engine. $300 and an afternoon.

I've done just this several times on my fleet of gravely commercial lawn tractors. it will take you a couple evenings as it cuts slow.

Karl

I'd have to ask. How much does it cost to have a stripped block bored? What does the "Lisle 15000 maybe" cost and how often do you plan on using it? Do you have the measuring equipment necessary to accurately "bore" a block?

My own experience in engine rebuilding is that it is generally cheaper to take the stripped block to a shop top have the work done.

Particularly at the cost of a Sunnen rigid hone. And the minimum 2 sets of stones required to do the job properly.

And he NEEDS to do all 4, not just the damaged cyl unless he wants to turn the engine into a Whacker plate tamper.

The lisle 1500 and a set of 80 and 320 grit stones is going to cost the better part of $180, and one mis-step and the stones are history.

Ballanced against about $130 to have the job done right by a good shop. Then he still needs a good bore guage or equivalent micrometers to do the measuring.

I have a good older inside micrometer set.

Lisle hone and stones

The machine shop sounds like the better and cheaper way to go but it's always nice to have an excuse to buy new tools :-)

RogerN

It's only nice to have an excuse to buy tools you will use again. I have many that have never been used - and many more that have been used once or twice.

What can I say ? I bought TWO hones at a pawn shop with several sets of stones for fifty bucks . Swapped one hone for some Harley parts . I kept the new stones ... OK , so I got lucky .

Ah yes , but the feeling you get when that 300 dollar tool saves you an $1100 mechanic bill is oh-so-sweet . And before I buy new , I usually check the pawn shops . See my post above about my cylinder hone . There are exceptions too , but I've saved thousands of dollars on tools purchased in pawn shops . Test before you buy ...

Shrug..I have a Sunnen hone and a bunch of grinding arbors to go with it. And 3 bladed ID mikes.

Total cost was less than $400

Something of a fluke...but.....

I long term loaned them to a buddy who runs an engine rebuilding shop. Now I dont pay to have an engine rebuilt.

Gunner

"The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination." --Voltaire

All my woodworking and power tools for YEARS were second hand high end stuff. Finally broke down and bought a NEW 1/2 inch electric drill.