Well, I bought a smoking 350 off of craigslist, but it was only smoking on one side (oil in tail pipe). last night I pulled the head off of that one side, and 3 of the pistons looked normal, the other looked clean or washed. The head had a lot of carbon build up on that one cylinder. You could still see the hone marks in that one cylinder, and not the others. Does this mean someone has already tried to re-ring this cylinder? Would re-ringing fix the issue? Let me know what you guys think. Thanks, Scoggman Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
A picton with no carbon on the top when the others are carboned up could be in indication of water in that cylinder. Even mild seepage would keep the carbon o softened to the point of getting blown off when the engine is running. You have it down that far I would at the very least pull that piston and check for cylinder to wall clearance and get a look at the rings check wend gap etc.
Not always. I have seen them with just the piston clean. Normally you would thing that anything that would make the piston clean would also make the head clean but it is not always the case. look at the piston it was sooted at one point and got clean not clean from the start and never got dirty.
Well.... I thought I struck gold.... but then it turned out to be copper.... I pulled out that one clean piston and the two ring gaps were lined dead nuts up together! Victory! but the I pulled off a main cap, and it looked pretty ruff! some pretty deep grooves... not quite catch a nail on it, but almost.... So what to do now.... how bad is bad on a crank? It is already a .010 crank.... This motor is only to get me going till I can save up for a crate motor. Should I put new bearing in it, or whould that cause more harm than good? Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Piston rings float in the ring groove and rotate all the time, right? If they didn't you would have grooves in pistons and rings that matched. So at some time they are gonna be lined up. I don't see where that's gonna be a problem unless the ring gap is excessive. I'd keep looking for another problem, or put Z Gap rings in every cylinder.
is it missing the oil ring scraper rails? hard to tell from the pictures. the ring gaps lined up probably wont' cause that much mayhem.
She's pretty worn in that bearing for that much copper to be showing I would be pulling the whole motor down and measuring and checking everything - that ol girl has seen plenty of action and needs some TLC.
You can't tell how bad a crank is without a micrometer. It will turn .030 without any problems if all you are going to do it drive it. If it is not flat then all it should need is a minimal turning if it needs turning at all. maybe get by with a polishing, I am not there so I cannot tell you. I would trear it down and give it a good going over. There is actually a thread that gives you some idea what to look for and how to go about a simple tear down and inspection that you should tak a look at before you start tearing things apart. Let me find you a link. maybe this will help a bit: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=679583
Probably burning coolant in that cylinder due to a crack or leaking head gasket. Then after a while the rings on that piston got stuck causing the excessive oiling. I've bought cars before that blew head gaskets from over heating and then they sat up for a period of time. Usually I can fix the initial problem and get it running again and then do the marvel mystery oil treatment to unstick the rings. Has worked for me several times.
Rings sure don't look stuck to me. And I've never seen ring grooves much cleaner than those. I'd guess it hasn't been many miles since the engine had been apart. The tops of the other pistons don't have enough carbon on them to be an "old" engine.
I'm with Squirrel, does that piston have all of the oil rings installed? The copper on the bearing might be from coolant in the oil over a long period of time
I can't tell much from those pics when viewing them on my phone.....but it does look like the bottom oil ring is missing. It's a fuzzy pic when I zoom in on my phone but looks like the top ring is there and the expander....that's all.
It has three rings total, one crazy one (Oil ring I am assuming) and two standard rings. I that it, or are there supposed to be rings on each side of the crazy looking oil ring? Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Yes. Oil ring uses an expander and two oil rails. You might as well leave the expander out if you don't have the rails.
Yes there are supposed to be two very thin rings on each side of the zig zag expander. They are oil control rings, and the zig zag thing keeps them "expanded" into the top and bottom of the piston groove. I'd guess someone was in there that didnt know what was going on. I'd also guess there isn't much run time since they were in there. Why they changed a piston ??? Could be a bunch of reasons why. But that bearing wouldn't make me happy. You could check that crank journal for egg shape with a dial indicator but it will have to come out to get a micrometer on it. An egg shape journal from a rod knock will wipe a bearing like that.
This post is a sign you really need to get a buddy that knows motors to help you with it,and you'll learn from it.. Or find another running motor to work for you tell your crate deal happens.
it looks like a main, it's the size it would be to fit in the main cap that is right behind it in the picture, and he mentioned that he pulled a main bearing and it looked rough.
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