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Installing rings

H

hurleyjd

Member
Can a person install rings in a engine to improve compression without doing a bore job. I was told by a mechanic that the bore becomes oblong by a little and the rings would never seat. True or untrue
 
It all depends on how bad the bore is worn. That is what a bore gauge is for, to check the wear.There is always some wear at the top of the cylinder where the piston changes direction. You don't say if it is a gas or diesel engine. You can get by with more wear in a gas than a diesel. On thing a lot of people overlook is the wear on the pistons. If the piston skirts are worn very much at all or the ring grooves are worn beyond specs you are throwing you money away to do a ring job. Personally if my customer doesn't want to rebore or resleeve the block and put in new pistons I won't rebuild it. There is no way I can guarantee a half done job.
 
hurley,

It isn't right, and isn't the best, but when I was a very poor young man I installed new rings in three or four engines. In each case, it worked out okay for me. You'll also need a groove cutter to eliminate the "lip" that is at the top of the cylinder. Typically, you can't get the piston out of the cylinder without cutting out the "lip". You'll also need a cylinder hone to remove the glaze on the cylinder walls so that the new rings will seat on the cylinder walls.

It's not the best thing to do, but a poor boy's gotta do what a poor boy's gotta do.

Tom in TN
 
Because most Fords are not sleeved, your question is a valid one, because boring a block all of a sudden turns it in to a major operation, as opposed to replacing rings only.

If an engine is hard starting, and/or has a lot of blowby, the first thing I'd do is remove the pistons, take the rings off of the pistons, and put them back in the bores. If the ring end gaps are substantially larger than allowable, and the cylinder walls are in "decent" shape, then re-ringing an engine like that would be time well spent, and would greatly improve the compression. Glaze busting of the cylinder walls is always a good idea when re-ringing.

To do the job "right", one should measure the taper of the cylinder walls to see if it's excessive. I believe Ford allows a max of .005", although I'm sure many a re-ring job has been done with taper much worse than that. If the taper in your engine is approaching .010" or more, then it becomes a judgement call that is influenced largely by the thickness of your wallet.
 
Home many acres are you farming, 4 or 400? Gas or diesel engine? How long are you keeping the tractor? How many hours do you put on in a year? I truthfully believe that deglazing the cylinder walls and a set of rings will fix at least 75% of low compression complaints. There are exceptions' to every rule, of course!
 
Your answer is yes and no, which does not help.

I have had success re-ringing an engine by using cast iron rings and cutting top groove for spacer, but doubt you will have a lot of success with hard chrome rings. The cylinders also develop taper which will allow the piston to rock, which cuts down on ring efficiency.
 

In the 60s and 70s it was very very common to do an in-frame over haul. We did it on cars, trucks and tractors. It did not last as long as a bored overhaul, but was done all the time. Hastings made cast iron rings just for this, and at one time made a chrome ring with a cast iron outer lip or hydrid ring just for this. A pure chrome ring did not like to seat in a slightly oblong bores. Yes you had to take a ridge reamer and remove the ridge or you would crack the top ring,,, assuming you could even get the old piston out. There was a max spec for out of round and a max spec for ring gap for this.

New oils have greatly reduced the cyl wear today. I have pulled down engines with 90,000 and can still see the factory hone marks and no ridge.

So as others have said.. yes, but you should LOOK at the cyl wear, taper, out of round, bell-ing at the bottom and top of bores, and piston condition. All in all, rings with less gap will always perform better than rings with bigger gap. But too much gap or wear and you can start cracking rings.
 
I have a 4630 that I have to use a gasoline soaked rag to start. Evan in warm weather. I have not done a compression check at this time some blow by. Also a 4100 with same problem. They have always cranked very well until the last few months. Probable no more than a 100 or so hours each year.
 

Another thing that can wear is the ring grooves. When I got into my 960 Ford the top ring in each cylinder was moving up and down a sixteenth of an inch.
 
Taper in the cylinder is more likely if it is under .005 you should be fine with a rering but first I would pull the injectors and have them checked if hard starting is the main complaint.
 
Kind of depends on what your using the tractor for and how much oil was it using. if it were using a lot of oil and your going to give it some hard use then I might consider it but other wise I would make sure the cylinder walls were clean and install a new set of rings. I remember years ago my dad had a 55 chevy that started burning oil. I was in school at that time and we had an automotive class so they would overhaul it just had to pay for the parts. I remember when we took the valve cover off the instructor looked at me and said you must be using city service oil because it looked like black leaves in there. instructor checked the taper on the cylinder walls and said they were out of specs and it would need to be bored. I told my dad and he said to just ring it. years later car was still running great and used no oil. don't know if it helped the compression a whole lot that that old 6 banger would run 110 down the highway for sure.
 
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