While we're talking about rings

I put new Firecraters and sleeves in my '47 BN a few years back. I had to leave the project set for a couple years, but kept the plugs in but loose (to keep the meeses out) and every few weeks pulled the plugs and spun the engine with the hand crank to keep it free and (hopefully) rust-free. Every third or fourth time, I'd shoot some oil into each cylinder before spinning her.

Finally got her all back together, painted and running last year.

The rings were chromed but I couldn't tell you if they were steel or iron underneath. My concern is that she still runs quite smoky, and I'm guessin' it's because the rings haven't seated. I run her pretty regularly just to keep the battery up and the oil dry, but I can't say she's worked under a load yet -- apart from about twenty minutes of draggin' my friend's tractor around trying to free up my clutch that stuck (another story, but fine now). Apart from that little exercise, she only has about twenty hours on the rebuild, none of it doing more than moving her own weight.

Any thoughts? Have I got a problem or do I just need to get the old girl out and work her some?

Back to break-in and new engines. If all the machine work is high-grade from the start - very little break-in is needed. From there, the more imperfections, the more break-in needed since the metal parts have to wear into each other until good sealing occurs. In some engines - that will never happen - especially if the cylinder-walls are tapered or scored - or the piston ring grooves are too wide.

With your engine - I don't know exactly what you did. If you did a good quality bore job - and the pistons are good - then there's no real time limit on the break in - ecxept . . . When parts break-in properly, wear almost slows down to a stop and friction is at a minimum. We've had engines that, instead of breaking in, wound up scuffing the cylinder-walls because the cross-hatch hone-marks were worn off before a protective glaze was created. The cross-hatch is needed to give oil a place to sit. You also might be burning oil through the valve guides - which would really show up when throttling down - rather than when powering up. If we had it at our shop - we'd tell you to beat on it like you're mad at it and see if it improves. We found that to break-in tractors we just rebuilt that lacked PTOs and could not be loaded on the dyno - we'd take them for a long ride on a long steep hill - going up. This gives you the ability to control the break-in load at different loads and RPMs without overloading the engine. Lug it down in a high gear a bit, then downshift, take the load off, and throttle it up. What I have witnessed on some fresh rebuilds that were not broken in properly - is scuffed and scored cylinder walls - and piston rings that "walked" around the pistons until all the gaps lined up.

The Firecraters are a high-compression piston.

As far as assembly goes, they come with pistons matched to sleeves, and I'm a bit of a nut about keeping such jobs clean from the git-go, and have no worries about that.

On the one hand, I'm thinkin' it's just a matter of not havin' worked her hard enough yet. On the other hand, I'm a little worried that I may have busted an oil ring whilst poppin' the clutch tryin' to break it free.

Other'n that, pretty as she may be, I'm more than willin' to work her to get her runnin' right.

Have done so many times

Any idea of whether you can run one too long with no load to where the rings just won't seat?

While runnin' the old darlin' just to keep her runnin', I've been blockin' off the grill to heat her up quicker. Might look a little silly runnin' up the road with the funny pages coverin' the grill, but I'm accustomed to scorn and derision. ;8^)

In the meantime I keep lookin' for a load to put on her, just tryin' to avoid the glazing. If the smoke doesn't clear up after giving her a real workout, I'm thinkin' I'll need to pull the pistons and put another quick honing on the walls of the sleeves and start over????

I hate bumps! ;8^)