Reusing rings and bearings
 

If a pulled piston was carefully marked for orientation could it go back in the same hole without honing the cylinder and installing new rings?
If the individual bearings were carefull marked for location and orientation as the piston was removed could they go back in their original locations?

Thanks!

are you removing all pistons you will more than likely break or crack the rings and the bearings won't crush right

390 is correct. Pushing the piston out past the ridge will probably crack or score the rings. If any of the bearings come loose from the rods they can not be reused. Chances are they will come loose.

Since the crush of the bearing isnerts is determined by the lenght of the steel shell on which the bearing friction material is bonded to I don't see how that could be lost, unlessyou filed away one end. I agree you may crack a ring or ring land of a piston on a ridge in a cylinder, however in the last 15 years I haven't seen many engines with a ridge you can catch your fingernail on. I don't advocate reusing rings but I must admit I have done it a couple of times and seen it done by others. Clean off the build up at the top of the bore(above the ring travel) with some Scotch brite or fine abrasive and
you'll be suprised at how nice the pistons come out.

what i meant was if you over torque or under torque the bearings you may not get them to fit right and if the bearings are copper colored then there is no point in even trying to reuse the bearings i would just buy a cheap set of new rings and bearings for under 100.00 and do a partial rebuild

Thanks for all the advice and helpful suggestions!

Don

both can be reused and if the bearings are within tolerance with no abnormal wear they can be reused. The rings can as well and if the engine sealed well before it probably would again but why take them apart if they're good, and I agree with a prev. post -spend a few bucks and rebearing and rering.

I would not suggest re-using the rings or the bearings considering you can buy new ones for fairly cheap. Once a 4 cycle ring is removed from the cylinder, that ring will never seat properly again. The engine will run, but will burn oil. If you pull the piston out, hone and rering the pistons.

Well I got one thing to say...dont take the Cylinder ridge out....dont Ball hone the cylinders to get a good cross hatch...take a chance on putting the rings back in? maybe upside down than what they were..reuse the bearings..you well never get the back exactly like they were!! and never replace the Oil pump when your into the motor that far!! Rots of Ruk Charie !!!

And we'll be talking to you in a few months asking WHY this and WHY that!!

Russ

Thanks for the tongue in cheek answer! The purpose of the question was to gain knowlege. A friend had asked the question and suggested that since only one cylinder was bad, why was I planning to waste the money on the other 7 cylinders? I didn't know the real reasons so I tapped this vast store house of wit and wisdom. Thanks to everyone who has responded I can now offer logical explanations highlighted with a twist of humor.:)

"There is no such thing as a stupid question" ... some guru somewhere


There is such a thing as being too stupid to ASK the question... me


tom

I hope Russ was kidding about flipping the rings over. the compression ring has a taper and might dig into the cylinder wall on the power stroke. I would hate to see humor confused for truth.

BE carefull with the ball type hone . Some have very course stones and could cut some deep cross hatch patterns . I was told this by a old timer that
has been there and done that . He said he would prefer the straight edge type
hones .

Cylinders and rings wear at a curled edge on the top ridge so if new rings are
used the edge of the top ring will be hitting the curl if the ridge is not cut down.

I have reused bearings before. I carefully inspected them and made sure they went back in the original position. I've done that, however, on Mercedes engines where the bearings cost several hundred dollars a set. I have had excellent results every time I've done this.

Had these engines been Fords I would not have considered this because the bearings are just not very expensive.

Well, I was about to say that I had never reused any rings, but then I remembered that I did that once. In the summer of '71 I was about to leave Germany and had to have my car at the port for shipping the next day. It was a '68 VW bug, but it was a US model. I had gone to the VW dealer to get rings and they were confused by the engine number. I got a set that were not correct. I did not know this, of course, until the engine was apart. I had taken it apart to do a valve and ring job.

There was one cylinder with the top ring in a hundred pieces. All I could do was knock the pieces of the ring out of that groove, do the valves and put it back together. I drove it the next morning a few hundred miles and put it on a boat. I picked it up a few weeks later in Bayonne, New Jersey and drove it to Texas in the hot summer time. The thing never missed a beat.

Once I got to Texas, I pulled it apart again, replaced all the rings and drove it for awhile during college years. It didn't take long after being back in the US to want a faster car. It was still running strong when I got rid of it.

Other than in such an emergency situation as this would I ever consider reusing rings.

My $0.02,
Doc

reusing rings and bearings
 

Is that like reusing toilet paper? There is no reason to use rings, bearings or gaskets (except copper) over again. We have all heard about making one engine out of two or three. However, it's not going in my truck! Take the time and plan things out. If you don't have the money now, wait. It's always better go leave it alone, than take the chance of it blowning it up.