No ground strap equals high oil consupmtion????

I've heard that when you're installing the rings you should always point the piston due north and ground your elbow to the block that they're going in to.

 

Well I knew this would bring out a lot of skepticism.... and I'm pretty miffed about it, too.

But I can tell you 100% that I believe the story... that doesn't mean I can explain it. He sure as hell wouldn't have torn that engine down for shits and giggles.... he's got three hot rod projects in his shop right now that need his attention far more than a crappy old Zephyr.

I'm going to have lunch with him on Friday.... I'll get some more details.

 

Hmmmm....I think I'd have to call it B/S too, without pics.




HellRaiser

 

Nothing against your friend, but I am going to call BS also. Any old school mechanic worth his salt would have ran an old tech engine like that a minimum of 2 to 3 thousand miles to break the rings in before he even began to worry about a little extra oil consumption.

Along with Porche, I think it was Cummings that did extensive testing on the ring gap theory. They deliberately lined the gaps up and ran them hard on a test stand, said it made no difference in oil use or performance.

 

Correlation is NOT causation.

 

76ironhead,
Your Ford not cranking is a possibly a sign of a bad starter solenoid. When they get hot they do not work well. That is the reason it will crank cold or do well with the hood off.
If you have checked that, it could also be the starter suffering from the same cause. Lastly six volts require heavier, thicker wire than a 12 volt system. Heat tends to have an ill effect on wiring. I would make sure my main cables were big enough and are in good shape If they are original, sometimes they have breaks or corrosion hidden by the insulation. As current tries to go through the obstruction they heat up. This plus the under hood heat of a trip will render them incapable of supplying enough current to turn the engine over.

 

OK Krooser, Now if you had waited posting this until the 1st of April , i,m sure we would all believe you.

 

I have heard of it before but thought it was just some old BS. Hmmmmmmm

 

I love this stuff!!!

 

I think I would have staked the lands.

 

. . . it's really a scientifical thing that can be explained scientifically.

I've seen this happen on V8 engines when the person didn't balance the piston rings. This causes the gapped end of the ring, the lightest side, to work it's way to the top of the cylinder bore because the heaviest part of the ring will sink to the bottom of the bore. Just like an unbalanced tire will rotate around so the heavy side is at the bottom when suspended, it's all about gravity. You must balance your piston rings.

Now I must admit in this case I was lost, this was an inline 6 so the rings would be horizontal and not be effected by gravity or being unbalanced. I then considered that the bad ground was causing the engine to search for a good ground, hence, the battery. I did a couple tests and realized that the ring gaps were the least magnetic portion of the ring and because of this when the engine searches for a ground, in this case the battery, the open end of the piston rings would all align as far away from the battery as possible. I'm sure if the gentlemen went back and compared where the rings had aligned, he would see that the gaps would be pointing away from the battery.

Myth solved


. . . uh, this is sarcasm for those that don't get it

 

Total-seal

 

It's true, I lost the ground strap on a '64 Dodge once and everytime you tried to drive north/south it would die; going east/west it was fine...something about magnetic North I think...honest...

 

Bad engine ground= all kinds of electrical problems. From lights not working or flickering, to, dash gauges going crazy....I rebuilt a 460 Ford three times, just to find out the reason it was sucking oil, was because the chrome Chinese valve covers didn't have an oil baffle in them! Chink Shit Stinks....

 

I had that same problem with a '67 elcamino I bought years ago. It turned out to be a wire that was run under the rain gutter at the back of the hood.

 

Ha. Good Voodo story. Here's another. I bought a new '59 Chivvy. As any kid with a new car would I spent a lot of time keeping the motor compartment clean. I had heard that putting a penny on top of the battery would keep the corrosion off. Ha. Anyhow, one day I was puttering in the driveway and a neighbor came over to look. He noticed the pennys. I don't know whether he was jivin' me or actually believed it, but he said, "You shouldn't do that. That corrosion has to come out somewhere and if you don't let it come out the top of the battery it'll come out in the light sockets".

 

Guys...Oil rings control oil consumption. That's why they call them, like, oil rings! Now, most any oil rings are built with a big ring and two scrapers that you gap at different places around the piston. It doesn't matter where the compression ring gaps are, their gap is covered by the continuous oil ring. You might get a tad more blowby with the comp. ring gaps lined up, but we're talking a few thousandths here, twice, and half an inch apart!
Now, unless the "old guy" was claiming that the oil ring scrapers were moving around the spacer and lining up with the other gaps in the same groove (talk about voodoo!) then he's talking bullshit. Well, even if he does claim that, he's still talking bullshit.
An old guy I knew useta line 'em up all the time. I asked him why, he said, "Why not? They're gonna end up that way anyway!" He claimed on a rering job, the bores were oval and the rings were going to expand into the wider diameter and the gaps would be in the narrow part, over the wrist pins. I just smiled and nodded, and went away.

 

Maybee it's the electrical smoke trying to get past the rings?

 

What kinda ring end gap was he running? Must have been on the wide side.
Larry T

 

Lets see, cast rings around an aluminum piston with the gaps making the magnetic poles. Bad ground makes an electrically live block. I can see a possibility of the gaps wanting to align with the portion of the bore that has the greatest mass. Just saying, don't dismiss these things out of hand cause strange stuff does happen.

I had a customer in New Orleans whose car wouldn't start if he went to Ben and Jerrys and got cherry nut ice cream, but would if he got vanilla or choclate. Anybody want to make a diagnosis on that one?

 

Of course ,Hudson used pinned rings that KEPT the gaps alighned.

 

And if you stick a chicken bone in the air cleaner....

 

I have a problem with oil consumption too. Used a quart every 500 miles, Only there was no place to put oil in the motor. Looked everywhere! not hidden, not under stuff. I mean no where !
So I turned the 710 CAP 180 degrees, Bingo there it was all the time. OIL.



larger image

Let not talk about the blinker fluid !

 

60's to 70's Pontiacs were bad on transmission shift cables when the ground straps were not used between the body and the engine. It would "weld" them up solid. Sold a lot of cables when someone would R&R the engine or transmission and not reinstall them.

I was told that it would do a similar action inside a transmission, but I personally never saw one or had one pointed out to me. I suppose if the emergency brake cables were the only thing touching metal to metal from the body to the frame it would do the same thing like a earlier posting stated.

 

In a car with no main ground strap, your steel piston rings will line up with the earths true north magnetic pull.

 

In this internet age I've learned to never trust a message that is delivered in large bold fonts.

 

That's true, but only if a closer ground doesn't exist. If he was to start the car and then remove the battery so it was running on the alternator then the ring gaps would do as you say, but once the battery was reinstalled they would realign with the battery.

That's some good troubleshooting info there, LOL

 

This is exactly why I always spot weld my rings fast, maybe 2 or 3 places around the piston.

 

sounds like maybe he needed to bore the cylinders...... not just replace the rings.

Just maybe maybe, the engine just did not run well without a ground strap ( at start up, there was enough juice flowing to "bridge" the gap/corrosion etc to make a connection and start the car ), so the coil barely had enough juice / ground to run, which made the engine run poorly = oil consumption ? ? ??

Okay, that is a stretch, but possibly the only way the story would make any sense....

I think maybe he finally got the rings to seat on an engine that really needed to be bored, not just rings replaced. Maybe he reved it up one last time in frustration and they finally seated. ?

?

Wil
www.sakowskimotors.com
www.ridefree.com

 

Whoa! Keep your shower stories to yourself.


As for the ground strap story. Sounds like hooey. People believe all kinds of kooky things though. People worship a zombie whose dad knocked up someone else's wife and wear a miniature version the device he was tortured and killed on around their necks then think other people are wrong for not doing the same. It's a wacky world!