Technical Doing a ring job the old way

I need to do a compression test on all cylinders...when I first started working on it I checked the first two just a little and got 90 or so after a crank or two, so I figured it would probably run if I gave it spark and gas....and it did....

 

Lots of mention about this cure over the years. It must have been a super secret "read this then burn it" dealer service bulletin, in all these years I haven't come across anyone actually having a copy of it.

 

This is the same brand as the seat cutter I used...I had the universal set, with more pilot shats and both 30 and 45 degree seat mandrels.



Like this!

 

doing a valve job the old way is a whole different thread!

 

Have to admit. I forgot about the wet clutch deal. R&R -ing engine might be a bigger deal than I mentioned earlier..What about that, Hudson guys?

 

shop manual has you pull the engine/trans together as a unit....and if you just want to work on the clutch, you pull the seat, a big chunk of the floor, pull the trans and bellhousing out from the inside, and have at it.

 

I've never done a rering job with the engine in the car, but 1 did replace the mains in a 55 Chev with 265 outside laying underneath it, they made some special pins that would go in the oil holes in the crank with ahead on them that would roll the top half of the main in place when you turned the crank. I've also replaced the mains in an 8N Ford tractor that had extreme wear with undersized bearings without any machining of any sort to the crank to get by until I could pull it apart for major overhaul, worked well enough, and holding fairly decent oil pressure,that I ran it that way until I sold it!

 

"doing a valve job the old way is a whole different thread!" I allus had trubble keeping track of all them little things inside.
Did you know that if you unbolt the flywheel and mag on a Model T, you can remove the crankshaft just by pulling hard on the front pulley? Snakes right outta there jes like recovering a strand of spaghetti from a dog with missing teeth. Of course if you forgot to tie a string to the rear of it you'll never get it back in without dropping the pan.

 

Did my 54 olds 324 didn't pull it rerung it cut the ridge and honed it also my son and I did his 56 caddy didn't pull it both turned out good.

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55 years, flathead Ford., Thought I was the smartest, most clever guy ever.

 

The BonAmi truck was also used by International Harvester on diesel tractors. My buddy Jerome used to work for H&N Equipment in Germantown Illinois. They were an IH dealer. The shop had finished overhauling a D361 in an 806 Farmall and couldn’t get the rings to seat. IH told them to load the engine on the PTO dyno with about 3/4 throttle and sprinkle the BonAmi in the intake. Ran it hard on the dyno after that and that’s all it took. Jerome is the same guy who made an in the field repair on the brand new Axial Flow 1460 Combine that the engineers told him couldn’t be done. After his repair, it became a standard field repair for the entire IH company. Sorry, slightly off topic, but sometimes you just gotta brag on your buddies!


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Hudsons take ring jobs well, they had a hard block and crank, both!
Done 5 or 6 at Mayfield's Garage in Santa Clara, in the '60s.
None of them had any ring ridge, and the crank journals were mirror smooth.
Rings had large end gaps, (seemed common on Hudsons, hard cylinder walls!)
In those days, we honed them with stones...3 stone hone.

 

We used to do on Datsun z cars and 510's all the time but they had cast iron rings with very little cylinder ware at 100,000 miles.
We just ball honed with a couple of rags in the bottom of the bore to keep the grit out.
We also changed bearings and timing chains.

 

One of the most interesting threads I've read in a long time. Brought back memories of laying in the driveway under the then new girlfriend's 62 Chevy II replacing a burned piston and rings. Didn't have a ball hone, so I split one end of a quarter inch wood dowel, inserted a piece of 100 grit sand paper, chucked the whole thing into a borrowed drill and deglazed the cylinder. Put it back together and she drove it for three more years. She must have thought I was useful enough to keep around as we've been married coming on 52 years.

 

I've done quite a few before cherry pickers engines were harder to pull and install.

 

Refreshing thread. Yes I’ve done it once like forever ago on a sbc. Also just pulled one piston, cleaned that hole and stuck another in place with new rings and it ran fine. Back when I didn’t have any $ and my back didn’t spaz out.

 

Yes, an oldish term...'G.I.' was used by the old timers when I entered the trade in 1957.
It generally referred to pistons, as they would wear the bores with high miles.
To 'G.I.' the pistons meant to knurl the skirts, thus 'oversizing' them, eliminating 'piston slap'! Actually, it worked. Resizing PLUS surface to carry oil up the sides of the skirts.
Very practical for our low compression, low RPM engines back then. However...

I 'earned' an old 276" flathead from one of the older rodders for doing an engine swap for him. The 3-5/16" pistons were 'sloppy' in the bores, (measured ring gap at top of bores, recorded it; pushed ring to the bottom and measured gap. Divided the difference by 3 (pi for circumference vs. diameter, 3.14, so 3 was close enough) and was confident that .005-.006 taper was O.K.
Had the pistons knurled, ('G.I.'d') filed .010" over rings to spec. Edelbrock 8.75 heads, Weber F-2 cam, dual 97s on Navarro manifold, 12 lb. flywheel, Blue Streak finned coil...
Ran excellent. No 'leaks', etc. Many miles, then sold it to my lifelong bud, for his '36 Coupe.

 

On our old motorcycles we used to enlarge the skirts by peening them out with a pick hammer while holding upside down in the bore. A risky method to be sure but never had one fail. I'm not sure I would do that anymore..

 

I've done two 308 ring jobs in car. last one 20 years ago ?The back cylinder is tight to work on.
Lot's of up and down , out and under. In the long run it's easier and quicker to pull the
engine and trans and lay it at 45 degree angle.
Pan comes out easier if you jack up engine and put a block under motor mounts.
ALL the Hudson engines I've done had a vertical ridge on the valve side of the cylinder
from the gap where the rings were pinned at the piston.
There are 4 rings. Takes a little work with a ridge reamer and hone to smooth it out
so the new rings don't hang up.
You are most likely in need of a timing chain, high wear item on 308.
Look at the oil pump drive gear , usually brass and sometimes wears to knife edge
and breaks.
You will want to adjust the valves , makes a big difference when they are right.
I've " patched " 5 Hudson big block engines with rings and timing chains,
usually cuts oil down to 1000 - 1500 miles quart.
Never rebored one. Usually the bearings were ok.
The most I remember putting on one was 30k miles , usually got 10k before they were sold.
Head gaskets are pricey now.
Have fun , great road cars with the overdrive.

 

thanks for the insight! I was wondering if they would leave a ridge from the ring gap, I was kind of expecting that.

 

I went for a 5 mile drive this morning, and then pulled the plugs and checked compression. 120 on all cylinders, plus or minus a few PSI.

 

Is honing/ deglazing really necessary? I did a triple nickel Cummins back in the day and at that time Cummins recommended no honing at all! So I didn’t and the engine ran fine. I know it was a diesel, but it had rings and cylinders too. Just wondering?




Bones

 

Decent compression for 4,600 Ft altitude. Should handle the trip.

EDIT: It is not broken, no reason to "fix" it.

 

Probably been 10 or 15 years for me to do it that way. The last one was a flathead jeep motor as I recall.

 

Those plugs sure don't look like they came out of an engine that is using a quart every 100 miles.

 

yeah, I know. It is leaking some, but it's also smoking some. I might see about looking at the leaks and see how it does.

 

From the look of those plugs it dont appear to be drinking oil. If it was mine I would retrofit a PCV. A PCV would redirect those oily blow by gasses into the engine and thus help seal the rings a bit. and a PCV many times will help with external oil leaks. also try running it a half quart low?

 

Remember the 370 Pontiacs? Brand new engines the oil would get sucked thru the exhaust valve guides and they smoked without a drop getting into the cyls. So the factory drilled holes from outside the heads into the exhaust valve guides. that cured the problem.

 

I subscribe to Jonathan's YouTube channel. Always something interesting and educational. I've learned a few things from him. His methods would not be approved by everyone, and he's an admitted R*t R*d builder, but hey, he does some cool stuff to/with some cool old cars and trucks.

Last time I did an in-frame overhaul was in 1976. 71 Olds Delta 88 455. Rings, cylinders honed, rod bearings and heads reconditioned by a machine shop, with new gaskets. Fixed the smoke and oil consumption problem. Got a bone bruise on one of my fingers when I smashed it between the intake and block. That hurt for a long time.

 

Pinned Rings? I have seen them on two stroke engines. I don't like the idea of the ring gaps all lining up. lined up ring gaps and a bit of wear and you should have more blow by than a Y block ford has!! I think I would remove the pin and space the rings like most other engines.