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I just pulled the heads off my 2006 6.0 and while I was inspecting the block I noticed a ding in the piston. The cylinder walls have no sign of damage that I could see or feel but would this be a concern?
In the upper area, the pistons are much smaller in diameter. The area of the piston shown does not touch the cylinder wall. However, fine scoring can be seen in the cylinder wall on the picture.
It is critical if the piston ring groove is damaged and the upper ring can no longer move. Please take a photo of the cylinder with the piston at the lower dead center.
What is the sign that the rings are bad? When I pulled the starter cable and put it on the positive terminal on the battery it didn't have an uneven compression sound
It most likely is not an issue causing a total loss of compression, yet. The missing pieces of that piston are somewhere though. It would be better safe than sorry to drop the pan and pull that one out to just be sure. There may be something stuck in the ring, or a ring is damaged somehow. You can put it back together and continue running it, and eventually the problem will fully manifest itself, and at that point, you may be looking at catastrophic damage. Right now, you are out a piston, set of rings and bearing on that rod.
These engines are completely inconspicuous without tuning as far as pistons and cylinders are concerned. Something got between the piston rings and the cylinder wall. Either a foreign body through the intake valves or an earlier injector damage.
Of course, the engine may continue to work, but it's a time bomb.
Looks like you called that one correctly.
I also question the two marks on the piston in the first photo. Then look like something
got in and was squashed into the face of the piston.
The damage looks like it could have been caused by a glowplug tip that got burned off and possibly went out the exhaust. I found similar damage to one of the pistons in my 6.0 from the previous owner, so I replaced the piston, rings and bearings. All easily purchased on ebay.
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