Sleeve Gouges

After looking at the sleeves on my 400D, I found gouges on one sleeve:


The gouges are deep enough to catch a fingernail pretty well. The gouges go all the way to the bottom of the stroke.

Does this indicate a broken ring? Would you replace just the sleeve and rings, or piston also?

I hope you don't mind all my questions. There will be more, ha.

Would be worth a look at the piston to see what's going on there. Could have a ring groove about ready to work its way into the next groove.

Looks like a busted ring. I would take the pistons out and see what is going on......

well gotta pull the piston out and see from there. the right thing to do is replace sleeve, rings, and look at the piston grooves and skirt and that will tell you if it has to be replaced.if it has a broken ring then its piston replace time.

I agree with all answers below. Rings have a clearance in the ring groove of about .0008" if uniform around when measuring with a digital caliper (whole groove) or using .001" feeler gauge between the new ring and the ring land under the ring, it should be OK. Mark the piston where the gouge is located to measure there carefully. Jim

To me it looks more like a piece of trash went through it at some point. I've torn down engine before that had broken rings and there was no damage from that. In one case I pulled down a running engine that had a fracture that went through piston and both compression rings and there was no cylinder wall damage.

Normally the ring exerts some outward pressure against the cylinder. If broken for some reason, that outward pressure is lost and the ring no longer seals but will not necessarily tear up the cylinder. The ring is now just along for the ride.

The clearance Jim was referring to is the vertical ring clearance. The clearance _behind_ the ring is a bit more.

The problem you have now is that the further you go into the engine the more and more little things you will find that will bug you even though the engine will still run. First the head gasket problem and now you find this. I've been down this road many times myself!

It may be possible, if the cylinder wear does not exceed limits and if the piston is not damaged, to smooth the gouges then run a hone through this cylinder and put new rings on it and go. It's hard to tell from the photo how fresh the damage is. Was the compression good on this one? You may be able to live with it until you're ready for a major overhaul. However, if you end up taking the block out to for machine work for the head gasket issue then it would be wise to check all the cylinders and pistons for wear and consider your major overhaul at this point.