Cylinder Honing - the hard way?

Yes... you can protect the crank throws and (I'm a little hesitant to use the term "hone") break the glaze on the cylinder walls... In years gone by, some shops were equipped to even bore cylinders with the block "in situ" - I wouldn't try this with modernish motors.

Of course, you will want to rent a cylinder bore gauge to check for taper and out of round before you commit any money to this. No amount of homing can save a worn cylinder.

FWIW, we re-ring our hotrod motors quite often to maintain cylinder seal... re-ringing a street motor buys very little time and can can be counterproductive - especially if faced with worn ring lands or pistons well on their way to collapsing.

If it were mine and I felt it was worth doing at all, there would be a rebore and a crank grind in that short blocks future...

Right now I'm at a point where I can get the head checked out and just put the top end and everything else back together. Short of any easy way to re-ring the pistons, I figure if I start messing with the rings and cylinders it's all or nothing, finish the block and everything right or just let it all rust. So if I leave stop where I'm at I should be driving this thing sometime in the future. There is some cross-hatch still visible and the walls aren't too shiny, not much if any ridge built up either. Not bad for 164k miles.

Thanks

And what oil were you using?

All miles from 57k to 164k were clocked running dino-oil. The original owner might have babied this car during the original 57k but I doubt she used synthetic.

check

When you hone the cylinders there is a huge amount of dust created. You need to really clean the dust out. You can't do that well with the crankshaft will in place.

I have a feeling that you will be eating hte who enchilada sooner or later. You are probably better off biting hte bullet now, than having the rebuild the short block later.

Jeff

That technique of honing the block in place used to be real popular in the 50's. We were kids and everything burned lots of oil by the time we acquired it so it was necessary at the time. It was a good learning experience. Thinking back though, Jim is correct in that you don't get too far down the road with those rerings. And I can remember some worn cranks that probably were due to contamination during the work. With today's engines, and given what you observed, finish up with the head and drive it until you have to do a complete rebuild if ever.

if your going to do the head, id sure as hell put new pistons and rings in,and rod brgs .valve job can put alt more pressure on some old pstons and rings. just for giggles ,roll in some new mains..lucas