Piston ring land repair

Recently I had a detonation issue with a motor and broke two of the ring lands, essentially scrapping a high compression piston set I special ordered from the UK. With the exchange rate, replacing them will even be more expensive, and the engine bores were cut to match the pistons, hence I'd like to see how feasible it is to fill in the damaged areas and cut the ring grooves again. The pistons are cast. Is this something most machine shops that do aluminum head repair can do, or should I shop the welding and machine work out to different places? Is heat treating going to be needed after the welding?

Reply to
carl mciver
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Considering the high stresses, you would be better off with a new set of slugs.Cast are bad enough as is but on a rotating assembly you risk much more damage

Reply to
NotHome

Carl,

I cannot help you with your piston but perhaps a knock sensing device could prevent a similar situation in the future. Have a look at my website.

Regards,

Boris Mohar

Got Knock? - see: Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs (among other things)

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Reply to
Boris Mohar

Worth bearing in mind that pistons are not round, but slightly oval, and you would need to consider this when attempting to make any sort of repair (which is not likely to succeed long term).

Reply to
Kenny

Not being a motor head, but a fair fixit..would it be feasable to simply widen the groove and stick in a second of ring? Perhaps an oil ring?

Gunner "Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

Reply to
Gunner

You have a few issues at hand, If you change the weight of the rotating mass the engine will fail soon as the bearings will cook and most likely a rod will blow out as you are looking for a seizure. All the groves and compression surfaces of the rings must be the same (leakdown test) question if the detonation was caused by too high of compression and too low of an octane fuel (the most common cause I see next to kids putting Nos on a motor and burning it up) Replace the damaged piston too as if you put it under magnification or NDT it, I bet you find hair line fractures. Assuming the bore was not harmed and a wet hone will clean it up or you need to scrap the set and go up a .10th on the whole engine. Filling the ring gap is "asking for it" try contacting the manufacturer, not the vendor, you will need to have the rings ground to fit the bore and re-weigh the complete piston against a comparison slug from another cylinder as even the smallest deviation will put your rotating assy. at risk. If this is a high-dollar engine, a band-aid is not going to cause anything but premature failure and most likely, worse than what you have to deal with now. If you E-mail me directly I can prob. hook you up with better info as this is sort of off-the-cuff but I do this on 5 second alcohol and nitro engines so I know the value of a dollar and this is something you don't want to screw up, especially with a conical piston.

let me know if I can help,

Rob Fraser

Fraser Competition Engines Chicago, IL.

" Kenny" wrote in message news:da09lk$nk1$ snipped-for-privacy@nwrdmz02.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...

Reply to
RDF

These are cast pistons, and we don't know what they're for. But it's quite possibly fairly low-stressed (if they're cast), in which case a neat weld and hand-filing will reliably repair a burnt hole from a stuck ring. For detonation I'm not so sure - has it lost a small length of land, or the whole land in a ring ? You need to retain the original land dimensions to guide the ring - filing a short length back to size is one thing, starting from scratch quite another.

I once took an engine apart to find a _wooden_ piston in it, with a piece of aluminium sheet screwed to the crown. Petrol engine of about

6:1 compression and a not uncommon repair in post-war England. I had a set of new pistons turned up for it (yes, on an oval piston lathe) at _great_ expense, then found a Dutch guy with a warehouse full of WW2 surplus and brand new ones!
Reply to
Andy Dingley

"Andy Dingley" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com... | On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 08:14:44 +0000 (UTC), " Kenny" | wrote: | | >Worth bearing in mind that pistons are not round, but slightly oval, and you | >would need to consider this when attempting to make any sort of repair | >(which is not likely to succeed long term). | | These are cast pistons, and we don't know what they're for. But it's | quite possibly fairly low-stressed (if they're cast), in which case a | neat weld and hand-filing will reliably repair a burnt hole from a stuck | ring. For detonation I'm not so sure - has it lost a small length of | land, or the whole land in a ring ? You need to retain the original | land dimensions to guide the ring - filing a short length back to size | is one thing, starting from scratch quite another.

Trying to balance the risk vs the cost... I see the risk factor as all the hassle I have to go through if it fails, and a block wiped out, too, not just the immediately obvious stuff. The two ring lands between the compression and oil rings are broken out, for about an inch or two on the skirt side of the piston, not the pin sides. The upper ring land is good, so the issue for me is how the pressures will treat a softer aluminum repair vs a harder surrounding area. It might push the lands over, instead of breaking them off, making a wipe out even worse. The problem surfaced while I was investigating a low compression in that cylinder, so I think if it did break some time sooner, it wasn't enough to be an issue, but I had the head off because I bounced the intake valves off the pistons when a timing chain component let loose. The bore still looks great. I can see it, but I can't feel it at all, so the engine is still good. I had to cut the bores to match the pistons, so you can see how replacing the pistons will also be a bore job and a size up as well. It already has two sleeves, and that block is getting expensive! Maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead and rest easier knowing for sure I did it right. Sigh....

| | I once took an engine apart to find a _wooden_ piston in it, with a | piece of aluminium sheet screwed to the crown. Petrol engine of about | 6:1 compression and a not uncommon repair in post-war England. I had a | set of new pistons turned up for it (yes, on an oval piston lathe) at | _great_ expense, then found a Dutch guy with a warehouse full of WW2 | surplus and brand new ones!

That's a new one, but I can see completely why it was done. I suspect the mechanic who did it might have been a lot smarter than you initially gave him credit for, considering his circumstances.

Reply to
carl mciver

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