[SEL] Cylinder/piston questions

[John Culp]

> The rings fit very nicely in the ring groove and although I haven't 
> measured it, the gap looks pretty good as well, especially since the 
> rings have overlapping ends.

The biggest problem with worn ring grooves is that they wear so the 
sides of the grooves are no longer parallel. They tend to wear so that 
the outer parts of the grooves flare. The inner part of the groove may 
still fit tightly when the ring's pushed down into the groove, but 
perhaps as the piston comes up into the looser upper part of the bore 
the rings can expand just enough to let them get out into that flared 
section and tip or twist, allowing blowby. One possible fix is 
machining new, wider grooves and fitting wider rings. Tommy's suggested 
fix of flame spraying the piston and turning it down to size would of 
course allow machining proper ring grooves.

John Culp
Bristol, Tennessee, USA