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piston clean up

A

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member
I am about ready to begin reassembly of the Cub engine. I've honed the cylinders and will be using new rings. The pistons look fine they just neeed to be cleaned up. What is the best way to do that? Can I use steel wool to shine them up, sandpaper?
 
Steel wool yes, no sanding. Some carb cleaner will help. clean the grooves well with a broken ring! JimN
 
"Amen" to that!
Learned the hard way.
I rememeber a Volksie engine I did way back. I got the piston/rings back in the cylinder, but I could hardly move them. Burnt carbon in the ring grooves. It was hard to believe how much was in there.
 
If you don't have a ring groove cleaning tool (like most of us don't) break one of the old rings in half and use it to clean the grooves. Just get the carbon out of the grooves and don't gouge the metal.
 
IF the rods are removed from the piston, I use my glass bead blaster; it not only cleans without damage but puts a very slight textured surface on the skirt so it will trap oil better during break-in.
 
I'drop the pistons in the cylinders without the rings and measure the gap at at least 8 points. See if they are within tolerance.
If they are aluminum pistons DON'T use steel wool .Small particles of steel will work into aluminum. Fine to use 220 grit sandpaper. One of my high school jobs was in amachine shop knurling pistone. They were really rough when you finished that but you could make a piston about 015 larger by doing that.

Gordo
 
Before i would worry about stuffen the pistons in i would be putting a Mic to the bore and checking from top to bottom . IF it needed rings then it needed bored and new pistons and then rings . As the honing only made it bigger . IT may work for a short time but this is not a cure , it is a band aid on a cut that needed three stitches . But if this is what you want to do then i like my way of cleaning pistons a lot better then elbow grease . Get yourself a steel five gallon bucket fill it with about three gallon of plan old water add two big bottles of Mr. Clean to it then cook it , try and keep the temp of the water around 190 to 200 Cook for three hours and every once in a while use a nylon stiff brisle brush and give a lite scrubbing pay close attention to the ring grooves . This will just melt the carbon and varnish off . When done rinse with warm water blow dry and let them set for a day in the warm . Oh by the way DON"T DO THIS IN THE HOUSE piston soup plum STINKS>
 
I did just a ring job on my tractor last year. Everything is ok and it will serve me well for the rest of my life, but if money isn't a big issue, there is a whole lot more satifaction to be gained by doing the job right.

It is your call, do what will put a smile on your face when you use it.
STEVE
 
WRONG! read the guy above- no steel wool. but also NO sandpaper. its 2009! ever hear of 3M scotchbrite? even comes in 4 different "grits"! i would recommend the red color.
 
I stand by my opinion. Every piston varnish cleanup system requires post cleaning spray down and drying. Casual use of a 3M pad (which I started using a very long time ago) can and will remove metal. Not acceptable. JimN
 
Gordo,
I don't understand what you mean by "knurling" the pistons. How did this make them larger?
 
Knurling a piston is a method of bringing the skirt and below the compression ring lands to a larger size. It is done with a piston knurling tool. This machine indents the skirt with a sharp edged rotary tool that imprints a series of parallel lines on the metal. It displaces the material, and some of it expands the edges of the groove. It is similar to the handle of a SK ratchet. But usually not compound, or as close together. It can increase a piston .008" and it lasts well because the ridges formed are well oiled. Not a good thing to do to a high performance engine, but it is/was common practice. JimN
 
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